Tougher penalties for illegally using a handheld mobile phone while driving failed to discourage drivers across Great Britain from doing just that on the day they were introduced – with a journalist on her way to cover a police operation among those caught and fined.
From Wednesday 1 March, the fine for using a handheld device while in control of a motor vehicle has doubled to £200, and offenders will also have their driving licence endorsed with six penalty points.
The new penalties were the subject of extensive media coverage ahead of their implementation, which has also been accompanied by a week-long nationwide crackdown by police forces.
But in Dorset alone, more than 40 drivers were caught breaking the law in just six hours on Wednesday morning.
On the same day, Thames Valley Police invited national and local press to an operation it was running on Ock Street in Abingdon which saw plain clothes officers radio ahead to uniformed colleagues whenever they spotted a driver using a handheld mobile device.
According to a tweet from Dominic Reynolds of ITN 5 News, one of the 17 motorists intercepted was a reporter who was in her car on the way to cover the operation.
Breaking Irony News: a journalist driving here to cover phone/driving crackdown has just been busted: £200, 6pts. pic.twitter.com/8d0GiyjOp0
— Dominic Reynolds (@domreynolds) 1 March 2017
The new penalties also mean that motorists who have held a full driving licence for less than two years risk having their driving licence revoked, which happens when they accrue six or more penalty points.
As a result, one 19-year-old who was caught in the Abingdon operation now faces the prospect of having to reapply for a provisional licence and retake his theory and practical driving tests in order to secure a full licence again.
Metro reports him as being “pissed off” after he was stopped by police, adding that his parents would “kill me” once they discovered what had happened.
He added: “All I was doing was trying to find a garage to change my tyre.”
Another driver snared in the same operation said: ‘It was my stupid fault.”
With no apparent sense of irony, he added: “I think the new rules are fair – it’s going to stop people.”
Road safety campaigners have long maintained that using a handheld mobile phone while driving, whether for a voice call, to send a text or check social media, is as dangerous – if not more so – than driving under the influence of drink or drugs, but does not carry the same stigma.
RAC road safety spokesman Pete Williams said of the new penalties: “The use of handheld mobile phones is at epidemic proportions and sadly the attitudes of many drivers have relaxed towards this illegal and dangerous activity.
“The new tougher penalties will therefore be welcomed by law-abiding motorists as a better deterrent.”
27 thoughts on “Drivers ignore tougher mobile phone penalties as police across Great Britain launch crackdowns”
Great, until the plod go off
Great, until the plod go off and do all the other stuff they have to do and road policing get dropped back down the pecking order. At which point, everyone will think they can get away with it again.
Time to de-criminalize this
Time to de-criminalize this offence and have some other type of law enforcement officer enforcing the law … like they do in some other countries. Then we might get a better level of enforcement.
Change didn’t happen in
Change didn’t happen in Northern Ireland.
Completely unscientific and
Completely unscientific and very very sad, but as I either walk into town at lunchtime or to the local Tesco I play a little game of how many cars go past until you see someone driving whilst using their phone. Rarely do I get above 50, even rarer to a 100. Since Wednesday I have got to 376. Not a single phone using driver.
50!
50!
You have to be kidding, when I watch opposing traffic at at least 1 in 10 is staring at their lap with a blue screen face.
It should a public information film sold as an opportunity to go offline.
Then just bust the heating engineers and estate agents who are the worst offenders.
Driving in and out of Bolton
Driving in and out of Bolton this morning and no change, drivers still behaving like they never heard of the new law, obviously the penalties are not enough to deter.
If there was a genuine will
If there was a genuine will to combat this, ANPR cameras could be adapted to recognise drivers using phones. Lash them to a lampost, pics streamed to a data centre, software flags up the cars they think might be using a phone, human reviews the results to weed out false positives.
Move the cameras every couple of days.
Would pay for itself in fines.
Crush the drivers and arrest
Crush the drivers and arrest the phones.
Driving up the m6 earlier,
Driving up the m6 earlier, stop start traffic, in the outside lane, all in a row, not 1, not 2, not 3, but 7 drivers, all texting. All tailgating. I fear for society with people like this around us.
The solution is simple:
The solution is simple: Google cars. They don’t drink and drive, they don’t over take on blind bends, they don’t speed, they don’t drive like impatient self important c*nts and above all the non driving drivers can chastise their children, text their bosses and google in peace!
Saying that ‘casualty rates
Saying that ‘casualty rates for new drivers are higher than for experienced drivers’ hides the truth.
Newly qualified young men are the problem.
Not newly qualified females, and not newly qualified older drivers of either sex.
Riding home last night on a
Riding home last night on a shared use path alongside a dual carriageway which goes into my city. I’m coming out and there’s a nose to tail queue of traffic going in. Except every now and then a *huge* gap would open up, and then a vehicle would rush forward (you know, just as if the driver was distracted and hadn’t noticed the queue moving…). Drivers faces lit up, just as if they were looking at a little screen (but of course they couldn’t be, because that would be illegal). My favourite that I saw was a HGV petrol tanker, crawling along with the driver holding a phone clamped to his right ear (UK, so in plain sight against the driver’s window). So yeah, I’m sure that this new law will save civilisation…
so the journalist was just
so the
journalistother bloke was just looking for a garage to change his tyre – that’s alright then isn’t it? Clearly no grip on reality! 🙁 What was he doing driving with a duff tyre anyway?DaveE128 wrote:
You may want to read the article and edit your post before any smart arse calls you up on it…
psling wrote:
You may want to read the article and edit your post before any smart arse calls you up on it…— DaveE128
You sure they haven’t already? 😉 Re-read. Done. Not really the key point though! 🙂
DaveE128 wrote:
If you drove as well as cycled you would realise using both modes of transport you can find yourself with a duff tyre during your journey and have to get it fixed there and then. Unfortunately if you don’t know the area and you are in a car then you are going to have to look for a place to get it fixed. Though the driver clearly lacked commonsense as you simply pull over and work out where a garage is.
Bluebug wrote:
If you drove as well as cycled you would realise using both modes of transport you can find yourself with a duff tyre during your journey and have to get it fixed there and then. Unfortunately if you don’t know the area and you are in a car then you are going to have to look for a place to get it fixed. Though the driver clearly lacked commonsense as you simply pull over and work out where a garage is.— DaveE128
But don’t most cars come with this amazing invention called “a spare tyre”? You keep it pumped up to pressure, and then if a tyre bursts then you just need to put “the spare tyre” on. Amazing, eh?
brooksby wrote:
But don’t most cars come with this amazing invention called “a spare tyre”? You keep it pumped up to pressure, and then if a tyre bursts then you just need to put “the spare tyre” on. Amazing, eh?
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Living in the past there.
Loads of modern vehicles come with a can of tyre weld because it’s cheaper, smaller and lighter than a spare tyre.
If you are luckky enought to have a spare it will likely be a space saver tyre. Both space saver tyres and tyres repaired with tyre weld are restricted to 50 mph/80 kph which is a painfully slow journey if you have a long motorway journey ahead and both recommend you don’t travel long distances on them get the tyre replaced as soon as possible.
This obvioulsy doesn’t excuse mobile phone use while driving.
DrG82 wrote:
Living in the past there.
Loads of modern vehicles come with a can of tyre weld because it’s cheaper, smaller and lighter than a spare tyre.
If you are luckky enought to have a spare it will likely be a space saver tyre. Both space saver tyres and tyres repaired with tyre weld are restricted to 50 mph/80 kph which is a painfully slow journey if you have a long motorway journey ahead and both recommend you don’t travel long distances on them get the tyre replaced as soon as possible.
This obvioulsy doesn’t excuse mobile phone use while driving.
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No, just stop and phone RAC, AA …
Grahamd wrote:
No, just stop and phone RAC, AA …
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So you would call a recovery company to change a tyre if you have a space saver or can of tyre weld?
That’s pretty special.
The only time i’d do this would be in extreme circumstances (eg. driver side tyre on a motorway)
DrG82 wrote:
So you would call a recovery company to change a tyre if you have a space saver or can of tyre weld?
That’s pretty special.
The only time i’d do this would be in extreme circumstances (eg. driver side tyre on a motorway)
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Given that I am awaiting spine surgery, yes.
Grahamd wrote:
Given that I am awaiting spine surgery, yes.
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I think you’d get extreme circumstances for that.
If you were fit would your call recovery?
DrG82 wrote:
I think you’d get extreme circumstances for that.
If you were fit would your call recovery?
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If I was fit and in a safe environment no; difficult to define safe though. To put into context once had a puncture on the M5, motorway police parked behind us and were adamant that changing any tyre yourself on the motorway would not be recommended and encouraged break down call…
DrG82 wrote:
So you would call a recovery company to change a tyre if you have a space saver or can of tyre weld?
That’s pretty special.
The only time i’d do this would be in extreme circumstances (eg. driver side tyre on a motorway)
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This is recomended for either side tyre on the motorway, as the rac/aa/police will park in the fend position so your car is not hit while you are working on it.
Whether on my peddle bike or
Whether on my peddle bike or my motorbike I’ve seen loads of people on the phone, there just isn’t an excuse and even tough penalties should be applied such as black listing them from having a phone etc.
Thanks to the EU insurance
Thanks to the EU insurance companies aren’t allowed to price in when either sex gets more dangerous than the other at driving. So young men and women, and old men and women pay the same premiums. Even though young men and old women are statistically more likely than the same age group of the other sex to have accidents.
Sorry for being a bit of a
Sorry for being a bit of a pedant, but we can change tyres, motorists geneally can change a wheel. I think normally a big machine is used for putting a car tyre on it’s rim.
And I have heard that some motorists find it difficult to undo the wheel nuts as they get done up by badly set windy tools.
But of course the solution would have been to pull over and park, consult whatever information they had, look around, figure things out and set off in a more confident manner. It’s how I use those old fashioned paper maps when I’m on my bicycle.