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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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MOBILE

Vodafone to close all its own shops in Spain by March 2022

UK mobile and internet operator Vodafone announced on Tuesday it will shut all 34 of its proprietary stores in Spain by March 2022, laying off 509 employees and leaving only the brand's franchises and distributors behind.

Vodafone has proprietary stores in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bilbao, Seville, Málaga, Granada, Córdoba, Santander, Palma de Mallorca and more Spanish cities.
Vodafone will close all 34 of the stores it owns across Spain. Photo: BEN STANSALL / AFP

Vodafone stores in Spanish cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bilbao, Seville, Málaga, Granada, Córdoba, Santander, Palma de Mallorca and more will close in the coming six months as part of the operator’s shift to digital. 

The company will pull down the shutters on all 34 of the stores it owns across Spain, confirming through its labour adjustment plan (ERE) that 509 employees will lose their jobs.

The operator is affiliated with nearly 600 stores in Spain that act as franchises and distributors, meaning it will still be possible to carry out operations relating to Vodafone in person. 

However, it will be a lot harder to get face-to-face customer service from the actual operator, if for example there is a problem with billing or you wish to cancel a contract. 

Vodafone CEO Nick Read announced back in 2019 that an increasing number of customers signing up to mobile and internet deals online rather than in stores would mean 15 percent of its high-street retail stores in Europe would close by 2021.  

Spain’s main workers’ union UGT referred to Vodafone’s offer to affected workers of severance pay equal to 33 days worked per year with a maximum limit of two years as “stingy”. 

You can check all of Vodafone’s proprietary stores in Spain here.

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