Drivers: An interview has confirmed that using your phone at the red light is NOT AN OFFENCE

Can you, or can you not, use your phone when you’re waiting at the red light?

This question has bugged readers since the beginning of 2015, when both mainstream media and online media reported about several new traffic laws that took effect from 1 February 2015. But honestly speaking, only one law caught every driver’s attention: You can’t use your phone when your vehicle is stationary at a red light. Or, to even worse: you can’t use your phone when your vehicle is stationary.

And we bought that. We, too, wrote an article about this, just because it was mentioned in all news outlets. After that, we were more concerned about one thing: like that, if kana no-car-can-move jam, then how to tell boss that we’ll be late?

So what are the effects? Well, husbands or boyfriends waiting at office building lobbies would get out of their car, send a WhatsApp message tell their wives or girlfriends they’ve reached, and then go back into their car. Maybe lah. Maybe. Because technically speaking, that should be how things are done.

It appears that it’s all a misunderstanding after all from a radio Interview in Class 95. This time, the information is from the Commander of Traffic Police in Singapore. If this is not reliable enough, nothing is. Here’s the transcript of the interview:

Question: “If we are stopped at the traffic light, okay, red light, cars are not moving, and I pick up my phone and I answer a WhatsApp message: is that an offence?”

Answer: “That’s not an offence. The offence happens when the vehicle is in motion.”

Of course, it’s not advisable. But we all know that already. And damn the previous misinformation: the number of arguments we all have with our loved ones increased by 41% because of this.