While today’s Transport Committee report shines a welcome spotlight on the epidemic of mobile phone use at the wheel, a request from MPs for tougher enforcement is merely talk until actions are set in stone by the Government.
That we are still a long way from a solution will be of no comfort to those who have lost loved ones as the result of somebody checking their WhatsApp messages at the wheel. Despite penalties for doing so being increased in 2017, the rate of enforcement has plummeted. It doesn’t take much thought to theorise the problem at hand.
Years of prioritising camera-based enforcement over recruiting traffic police has blatant consequences, as we’ve commented here time and time again. No camera in place anywhere in the UK has the ability to accurately spot when a driver isn’t paying attention, is driving dangerously (rather than speeding in a binary sense) or is under the influence, yet camera installation rises while road policing numbers have fallen.
Our new Prime Minister’s plan to hire 20,000 extra police officers by 2022 is encouraging, but it’s not yet clear whether the priority for this lies on our roads or on our streets.
While car makers have the technology to monitor driver attention from behind the wheel and warn them, there isn’t yet a method of linking this up with legal enforcement. More worrying still is that there appears to be a legal grey area with regards to what actually constitutes mobile phone use, as the recent case involving Ramsey Barreto has revealed.
It seem there’s still plenty that needs to be clarified before the problem can be properly tackled - and as technology evolves, it could become even tougher to enforce.
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Peter Cavellini
Never happen....?
Simple solution, if you want People NOT to use there phones in Cars, then set the Cars infotainment so that when the Car is on the move you can’t make a call, you can receive a call but you can’t answer unless you stop, all the other functions of your infotainment should still work for your Satnav, streaming Music etc, or indeed if you use your Phones Road Maps, this way you’d have no choice but to stop, people would get used to this solution, there’d eventually be no need for draconian fines, isn’t it possible to do this?, I don’t know, hasn’t Government and manufacturers thought about this?
Symanski
Police hypocrisy.
Funny how I've seen Police using mobile phones whilst driving. Operating them by hand. Yet nothing is done about them.
289
@ symanski
Totally agree, how many 'police pursuit' programmes have you seen where there is a high speed pursuit taking place (often in an urban area) and the officer at the wheel is pressing a button on his shoulder to speak into his radio....meanwhile the dummy sitting beside him does bugger all !!!
The other one that bugs me is the lack of Police action with TV presenters (and you tubers) takling into camera whilst driving on public roads.....how distracting is that? Sometimes if you watch carefully they are looking to camera 3-4 seconds at a time....you cover a lot of ground in that time.
The Police dont even need to catch them in the process....it is all recorded on video.....and yet they do nothing about it!
Peter Cavellini
They can’t....?
Well, yes, the Police can’t, yes, you may have a Driver doing what you described,but, unless he’s a known criminal, they don’t know who he is, they can’t see his reg.?
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@ Peter Cavallini
....actually Peter, right next to his phone is an epaulette on the shoulder of his shirt with his badge number clearly displayed!
jason_recliner
Some of these comments are great!
If you can't drive a car at legal speeds on public roads while holding a conversation and / or eating a snack and / or sipping on a beverage... you've got other, far greater, problems! Maybe you shouldn't be driving at all.
typos1
Absolute madness, if we re
Absolute madness, if we re gonna ban handsfree phone use, we also need to ban talking to passengers.
beechie
Whataboutary.
Everyone says they're potentially dangerous, but are they in reality?
Mini2
Also...
Any modern car with CarPlay or android Auto doesn’t even require a prod of a touch screen. You can literally start a call using your voice and end it using the steering wheel button. So in that case, it is no different to speaking with a passenger. You don’t sit turning around to look at your passengers as you talk to them; you look at the road ahead. Much like a phone call. Don’t criminalise something which is pretty safe in comparison to the millions of idiots who are not being caught taking photos, sending texts and posting to Instagram, phone-in-hand, whilst they’re at the wheel. Police are oblivious and I’m convinced the standard of road policing has dropped.
Peter Cavellini
Cup holders etc...?and when you’d
Eating in a moving Car while driving, drinking a Hot beverage?, aren’t they just as bad?, it’s taken too long to realise that in a Car your going somewhere, it used to be if you were going on a long Car trip you took Food like Sandwiches, Crisps, juice of some sort and you stopped in a Picnic area so you could eat safely, the driver got a break and when you finished you dumped your rubbish in a Bin and continued on, also right now it would be cheaper to do this than get ripped off at a service area. Why did or when did we think eating and drinking while driving was a great idea?
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