Why are so many drivers still using mobile phones at the wheel?

9:46am Thursday 1st November 2007

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DID I dream it, or was the law regarding mobile phones beefed up in February? Didn't it become an offence punishable by a £60 fine and three penalty points?

Obviously not, otherwise why would so many people in High Wycombe be blatantly flouting the rules?

I was astonished yesterday morning to glance in my rear view mirror and see a middle-aged woman in a baseball cap clutching a small telephone to her ear while she drove. Not only that, but she had a cigarette in her other hand.

I didn't manage to catch sight of her sandwiches but I am sure they must have been there on her lap judging by the clear disregard she had for road safety.

This was not some quiet back-street either, but was on the busy London Road. Okay, she was crawling along, but she could hardly boast to have full control of her car.

I was still seething when I arrived at work. Perhaps I was being a bit of an old stuffed shirt, I thought, as I told our journalists what I'd seen.

The reaction shocked me. One colleague, Paul Mortimer, said he'd seen three cases of phoning and driving in Wycombe in a ten-minute journey into town on Tuesday lunchtime.

This included one woman who was pulling out of a side road while she was chatting on her hand-held mobile. She then proceeded to follow an alarmed Paul into town while she continued to gas on the phone.

But there was an even more worrying story related by another of our journalists, Liz Collins, who was following a lorry between junctions five and six on the M40. The driver was going particularly slowly and holding up the traffic behind him, so Liz overtook.

As she did so, she noticed to her horror the man was clutching a mobile to his right ear which he held, across his face, in his left hand.

Public-spirited Liz managed to memorise his number plate and has emailed his company to complain.

Readers will recall that I did the same as Liz a few months ago when I shopped a lorry driver to his firm. But that was before the new regulations came in.

It seems it simply doesn't matter what the law says or how heavy the penalties are. There's a large group of motorists either too thick, too arrogant or too reckless to believe the rules apply to them.

It's also an offence to make a call from a hand-held device if you are stuck in a traffic jam, but you can at least understand why people would do that, and for the most part it's not dangerous although it is illegal unless you are calling the emergency services.

Hands-free devices are not the total answer, because use of them can still be unlawful if they distract you while driving. But they are still a darn sight better, and more legal, than hand-held ones.

What really offends me is that the law is in place for a very good reason - public safety. The motorists we saw flouting it this week must just be the tip of the iceberg.

Admittedly, it's a lot harder for police to stop this type of crime (and yes, it is a crime) but when they do, they must come down like a ton of bricks on the offenders. And they should set up random roadside checkpoints, as they do for speeding, to crack down on the menace.

Mobile phone use at the wheel has claimed lives and will continue to do so unless it's stopped.

Research has shown that a driver's reaction times are up to 50 per cent slower that normal when driving and using a mobile phone, according to the Department for Transport. Meanwhile, other research suggests you are four times more likely to have a crash if you are using a mobile phone while driving .

But the joke is that it's all unnecessary. As Paul Mortimer pointed out to me yesterday, you can pick up a hands-free set for around £5 to £10. That's not a bad price for keeping legal, escaping penalty points and perhaps avoiding killing someone.