The article makes it sound like the cops were silly to arrest her for
this, but making a left hand turn while holding an apple in one hand is
dangerous to everyone else nearby.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/arti...397837,00.html

Woman charged with holding an apple while driving

Martin Wainwright
Tuesday January 25, 2005 The Guardian

A woman tempted by an apple while driving set off a Kafkaesque chain of
events, a court heard yesterday, including aerial photography by a
police helicopter, nine preliminary court hearings, and a trial lasting
more than 2 hours.
Unlike Eve, nursery nurse Sarah McCaffery, 23, had not taken a bite out
of the forbidden fruit when she was stopped by PC Lee Butler on
December 4 last year, but she was holding it in her right hand whilst
swinging her Ford Ka into a left turn.

Apple or not, the manoeuvre at a junction in Hebburn, South Tyneside,
free of pedestrians and other traffic, was carried out "perfectly" said
her solicitor, Geoffrey Forrester, but it was spotted by a patrol car
parked nearby.

PC Butler pounced, initially because he thought that Ms McCaffery's
apple was a mobile phone. He then issued the nurse with a =A330 fixed
penalty notice as part of a Northumbria police drive against food or
drink at the wheel.

Ms McCaffery was found not to have been in proper control of her car by
South Tyneside magistrates yesterday, but Mr Forrester said that her
real offence had been to fight the case.

"This is all about trying to crush her because she is the one who stood
up and said 'This is silly'," he told the court. "The police service
and the Crown Prosecution Service do not like to be told they are
silly.

"Nothing illustrates the nonsense of this case more than the resources
that have been thrown at it." The magistrates heard that after Ms
McCaffery had the "temerity" to challenge the fixed penalty, police
used a helicopter to film the junction. A sergeant and constable in a
patrol car made a video.

Mr Forrester claimed that offences such as drug-dealing, burglary or
assault on children would not have been lavished with such attention.
He added that Ms McCaffery was of "impeccable character".

Prosecutor Chris Kay, whose evidence included a second video taken from
the helicopter as well as aerial photographs, said that the proceedings
had cost =A3425, excluding the aerial work. The court heard that the
helicopter had not been sent specifically to film the junction, after
Ms McCaffery's decision to go to court, but had taken the video and
photographs in the course of another job in the area.

Ms McCaffery, of Hebburn, was fined =A360 plus =A3100 costs at the 10th
court hearing in the case. The chairman of the bench, Ken Buck, said:
"We accept that there are times when you can drive with one hand, but,
in holding an apple while negotiating a left hand turn, we consider you
not to have been in full control."

A spokesman for Northumbria police said costs did not have any bearing
on decisions to prosecute. "The defendant chose for the matter to go to
a court trial rather than accept a fixed penalty notice, so we were
obliged to gather all appropriate evidence to present our case."