Driving bus while gabbing on a mobile 'not a crime': Swedish court
A Swedish bus driver convicted for driving while speaking on a mobile phone and writing in a notebook at the same time has been acquitted of reckless driving by the Swedish Supreme Court.
The driver was captured on video by a passenger’s mobile phone camera as he drove about 50 passengers between Stockholm and Uppsala, the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reports.
The clip shows the driver holding a mobile phone in one hand while scribbling in notebook with the other.
A district court found the driver guilty of reckless driving, and his initial appeal was also rejected.
But on Wednesday, Sweden’s highest court reversed the lower court rulings, freeing the man of all charges.
While the court judged the driver’s behaviour as inappropriate, it argued that there is no statue forbidding him from talking on a mobile phone while driving.
In addition, driving conditions were clear, the road was straight, and there was no indication in the video clip that the driver’s control over the bus was compromised.
“He was driving on a straight and smooth road and there was almost no traffic, and besides the weather was nice. His view was good and he had both hands on the wheel almost the whole time,” Henric Ask, a lawyer from the Legal Bureau of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation who represented the driver in the case, told DN.
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The driver was captured on video by a passenger’s mobile phone camera as he drove about 50 passengers between Stockholm and Uppsala, the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reports.
The clip shows the driver holding a mobile phone in one hand while scribbling in notebook with the other.
A district court found the driver guilty of reckless driving, and his initial appeal was also rejected.
But on Wednesday, Sweden’s highest court reversed the lower court rulings, freeing the man of all charges.
While the court judged the driver’s behaviour as inappropriate, it argued that there is no statue forbidding him from talking on a mobile phone while driving.
In addition, driving conditions were clear, the road was straight, and there was no indication in the video clip that the driver’s control over the bus was compromised.
“He was driving on a straight and smooth road and there was almost no traffic, and besides the weather was nice. His view was good and he had both hands on the wheel almost the whole time,” Henric Ask, a lawyer from the Legal Bureau of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation who represented the driver in the case, told DN.
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