Checking your smartphone while driving is one of the best ways to ensure your destination ends up being the nearest hospital instead of wherever it was you meant to go. “They are going to have to turn off their phones at the wheel otherwise they will be taken off the road”.
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To regain a full licence they would have to reapply for a provisional licence and driver as a learner until they passed their test again.
Points on the licence work like warnings for drivers in the United Kingdom, with a complete driving ban enforced at the accumulation of 12 or more.
Over at the Department for Transport, their figures show that drivers who have been distracted by their phones was a contributing factor in 492 accidents in Britain in 2014.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the tougher sentences would be introduced as soon as possible.
Motorists caught using a handheld phone while driving are now given three penalty points and a minimum fine of £100.
The Government is shortly due to announce the results of a consultation into mobile phone use while driving, and it seems certain that the current £100 fine and three points will rise to £150 and four points for most drivers.
RAC road safety spokesman Pete Williams said toughening both the fine and the penalty points would help to deter people from committing an offence in the first place.
The RAC suggests that one of the reasons that more people are using their phones while driving is that there are fewer policeman around.
Nearly one-third (31pc) of motorists admitted to using a handheld phone behind the wheel compared to just 8pc in 2014 the survey of 1,714 United Kingdom motorists found.
Among the 1,714 drivers questioned in the survey, 19 percent said they’d sent a message or posted on social media (up from 7 percent two years ago), while 14 per cent admitted to snapping a photo or shooting a video.
The number of full-time dedicated roads policing officers has declined by 27% between 2010 and 2015 reducing the number to 3,901 across England and Wales (excluding the Metropolitan Police) leaving drivers with little or no expectation that they will be caught for motoring offences other than speeding or jumping a red light where automatic cameras do the job of enforcement. Last week a lorry driver who killed an off-duty police officer by crashing into oncoming traffic moments after opening a text message on his phone was jailed for six years.
It is calling for a “cultural change” and investment in a high profile publicity campaign to drive home the dangers of using a handheld mobile phone at the wheel.
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This is not the first time using a mobile phone has played a part in the tragic loss of life on the region’s roads.
