Use Of Mobile Phones Whilst Driving At An All Time High

Sunday, 21. February 2010

Mobile phone use, whilst driving, has increased to levels reached before legislation was introduced in 2003, according to observers working for the Department for Transport. I don’t mean hands free I mean using a handheld phone. The observations were made between 2008 and 2009 and show an increase of 27%. The worst offenders are van and lorry drivers. Observations were made at various sites in the south of England. The observers saw 2.7% of all truckers using a mobile phone up from 2.3% observed before legislation was introduced. 1.4% of car drivers were spotted using their mobile phones whilst driving. Whilst clearly more needs to be done and Peter Rogers, chief examiner for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said ‘There is insufficient enforcement. Drivers don’t think they will get caught.’ On the other hand Cheshire police were slammed by a judge when they brought a case against a driver accused of driving whilst using a mobile phone. In order to gather evidence they used a plane to take photographs of road markings infuriating the judge who kicked out the case. It was later found that the image that cost so much for the police to collect was already available on the Internet. The doughnuts! By Graham Hill