Ah, I had in mind a dashboard console but you’re probably right actually.
Still, I’d like to know whether changing the song in this case meant pushing a single button to shuffle to the next song, or reading and selecting titles.
Those are certainly defenses he could have raised at trial. He decided to go a different way with it and plead guilty to dangerous driving. In so doing, he admitted that his driving was not prudent–it was dangerous.
iPods are easily plugged into modern car stereos through an auxiliary port or can be connected with an option to broadcast over one of the FM channels that you would then tune to on your car stereo. So yes, they are very often installed into automobiles. To me, an iPod can be more complicated to operate than a car stereo, but it doesn’t have to be. Something like satellite radio certainly is not simple to operate because of the number of channels and options.
Some car stereos or aftermarket hardware actually support controlling the iPod through the stereo controls so you don’t have to fiddle directly with the iPod once it is plugged in.
Just FYI: newer car stereos that are iPod capable have a cable which you plug into your iPod. The controls on the stereo then work the iPod, allowing you to forward to the next song or what have you. They also make iPhone compatible car stereos, which have a built in bluetooth so you can talk to someone using the car’s speakers. When you phone call ends, it re-connects to the music function of the iPhone, radio, or CD you were listening to.
ETA: theR also describes another setup, where the iPod broadcasts over an FM frequancy, and the controls on the iPod are used to change songs, etc.
I don’t appreciate that this has been moved to Great Debates, I’m asking a factual question about why, under UK law, this guy has been sentenced to the length of jail sentence he has. I’m not just looking for opinions. I’d like it moved back to GQ please.
And I understand what people are saying - of course he shouldn’t have distracted himself. But car accidents happen all the time, and people die from them all the time. All of those accidents must have a reason, and they’ll almost involve at least a minor human error of some sort - but to say that those minor human errors thus constitute “killing someone” and merit years and years in prison? All of us have changed the radio in the car before, or taken our eyes off the road momentarily. Fortunately for most of us those split seconds have no consequences, but in this tragic and unfortunate situation it has.
I’m not asking about the morality of it, I want to know the legal facts. Firstly, surely this would mean that almost any car accident will involve lengthy jail sentences for the driver who made an error and caused it? And secondly, even if this is the case, why would this 21-year-old admit changing his MP3 player? I think there’s something more to this case that hasn’t been reported.
Which led directly to the death and to the prison sentence.
It’s one thing to run into black ice, or have a kid run out in front of your car.
It’s another to act reckelssly and stupidly.
You don’t drive a car while drunk.
It’s not a ‘minor error’ to stop concentrating on driving.
It’s not a ‘minor error’ to drive a car while drunk.
No we haven’t.
GQ answer:
From here, plus link to 56k PDF that presumably contains more info (I haven’t the energy at the moment):
http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/advice/index.html#dangerdriving
This man has been found guilty of the same offense having claimed that his sneezing caused the crash.
The finding of “death by dangerous driving” is beyond question – there’s a good discussion of the guidelines here, and avoidable distraction is listed as a “highly culpable standard of driving.” The maximum sentence is 14 years, and 32 months appears to be only slightly longer than average.
The UK is not like the US. No place on Earth is like the US. Social responsibility is taken much more seriously than individual liberty, and this pervades every institution, including the legal system. Specifically with respect to driving laws, for example, the driving age is a year older, the driving tests are more difficult, and penalties for recklessness, as you can see, are more harsh.
Also, he’s a bit famous, and they may have wanted to make an example. Fucking around with your entertainment devices, handheld or dash-mounted, is bad driving. Period.
A factual answer. Your post seems to be making a lot of what you seem to regard as the injustice of the sentence in Mr. Robertson’s specific case, though, which makes GD an excellent venue for discussing that.
No offense, but I find this unbelievable.
This is the correct analysis, with an appropriate focus on the deterrence aspect as well as the retributive aspect.
There but the grace of God go you. Let’s hope you never encounter a song on the radio you just can’t stand and have to change the channel while driving.
Cheap shot. Unsurprisingly enough.
I can fully access my ipod on my car radio and it isn’t as simple as changing a radio station. There are playlists, albums and various artists to pick from. There can be a lot of reading and scanning to find what you want.
Yes, it can be very similar to texting, distraction wise.
I don’t think it can be compared to just switching stations.
Or at least that if you do, you have the moral luck not to kill anybody. 
It apparently wasn’t anything on the radio, it was on his own Ipod and he presumably loaded it onto the thing himself.
He should have pulled over to fiddle with the thing, or if he couldn’t do that safely and legally… suck it up and wait.
Sure, all of us have taken our eyes off the road for a second. But very few of us have done so when there was another vehicle close enough for us to have a collision during that time frame. Especially at the kind of speed where you could kill someone. If I’m running down a straight stretch with no traffic around me I’ll adjust the Ipod or put in a different CD or even root around in my purse with one hand. But I don’t do those things when I’m behind someone, or when there is oncoming traffic, or when I’m passing someone or driving in traffic. Because it’s dangerous and stupid.
Do people not understand that there is an irreducible risk associated with driving? There are unavoidable accidents. That’s why the state mandates drivers carry liability insurance. This guy is going to prison for nearly three years because of an unfortunate coincidence.
Unless some villain had rigged his iPod to explode unless he selected certain songs in a certain order, with instant detonation if he chose the wrong one, this wasn’t one of them. I take my iPod with me on the road. I either set a long playlist before I start moving, or I fiddle with it at a red light. It doesn’t take long to fiddle with it, but in that time it demands far more attention than fiddling with the radio. The guy fucked up by choosing to mess with it on the highway in traffic, period.
Considering you could push a button within reach without looking at it, it seems unlikely that he’d merely done that rather than read through titles.
No. It was just a coincidence. He could have been scratching his nose or adjusting his trousers or scanning the sideview mirror. But no, in this case, he was looking at his iPod and people jump to the conclusion that he was grossly reckless.