Enforcing mobile phones legislation

[Grandad]

The "severe" new penalties don't seem to have made a scrap of difference so what would motivate drivers to stay legal?

Well, how about immediate confiscation of the offending phone - recover it from the nearest police station to where it was taken after a period of 24 hours. Maximum inconvenience with minimum effort

A deterrent with real teeth.

[yakdiver]

Seeing the phone has not committed a crime, why not lock said person up for a week preferably fed on bread and water

[reohn2]

If the offender thought they'd get caught they wouldn't offend,if they thought their phone and car were confiscated for a week and only returned after payment of £400 they definitely wouldn't offend.
As it is there's not enough police and the penalties are too lenient.
It's that simple.

[thirdcrank]

Thousands of drivers caught in mobile phone crackdown

23 Jan 2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38711931

Thousands of drivers caught despite mobile crackdown

29 May 2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40079382

In the latter period, around 6,000 drivers were penalised in a month, of which some 2,000 were in the Met., leaving 4,000 for the rest of the country. In round terms there are some forty territorial police forces so that's an average of 100 a month or say three or four a day, per provincial police force. (The significance of the second period is that it covered the first four weeks after the increase in the penalty for this offence. )

[mattsccm]

Never going to happen. Not enough Police to spot people and our society is ridiculously lenient when handing out punishment.
Education has a limited value although what is out there is pathetic.
I would like to see a device whereby mobile phones are locked off when inside a car. So what if the passenger wants to use one. We survived for decades without them and I bet only a tiny proportion of calls are "important" and nothing except emergency service calls are essential.

[Grandad]

f the offender thought they'd get caught they wouldn't offend,if they thought their phone and car were confiscated for a week and only returned after payment of £400 they definitely wouldn't offend.
As it is there's not enough police and the penalties are too lenient.

This penalty is certainly not lenient - losing use of a phone for 24 hours would be seen as a is a serious matter by most motorists.

Wouldn't need many more police - introduce it with short highly visual campaigns across the country and publicise the results - consequences would soon sink in.

No need for fines with the associated admin - the inconvenience should be enough. Think of a motorway driver several hundred miles from home having to return the next day to collect the phone.

[Cyril Haearn]

f the offender thought they'd get caught they wouldn't offend,if they thought their phone and car were confiscated for a week and only returned after payment of £400 they definitely wouldn't offend.
As it is there's not enough police and the penalties are too lenient.

This penalty is certainly not lenient - losing use of a phone for 24 hours would be seen as a is a serious matter by most motorists.

Wouldn't need many more police - introduce it with short highly visual campaigns across the country and publicise the results - consequences would soon sink in.

No need for fines with the associated admin - the inconvenience should be enough. Think of a motorway driver several hundred miles from home having to return the next day to collect the phone.

24 months would be better or just destroy the phone on the spot

Trouble is mathematically the chance of being caught is so small the effect is as if the phone were confiscated for 24 seconds

If I am waiting at the lights in my vehicle and I observe that the driver behind is on the phone I can prevent an offence by refusing to move off when the lights change. What should I do?

How might be dealt with those who are caught more than once?

[Barks]

The offence has already been committed if phone used while engine is running or with keys still in the ignition.

[Mick F]

Remember my thread?
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=112711
I still reckon there's very few on mobile phones compared to before.

[hamster]

I have to disagree Mick. I regularly use the National Express coach up the M3: it gives a ringside view of what's going on inside cars. I reckon around 1 in 10 are using their phones. These days it's not voice but fiddling with other stuff.

Carmakers are working on it and take the matter extremely seriously, from the R&D people I have met. Eye tracking is being built in as part of collision avoidance autonomy.

[Mick F]

I've not been on a motorway for many a long month ...... could be a year or more ......... so I cannot comment on motorway drivers.
All I can report is what I see round here abouts, both whilst cycling and driving.
Actually, I cycle more miles than I drive these days.

[RickH]

The offence has already been committed if phone used while engine is running or with keys still in the ignition.

Keys in the ignition!

That is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. I think I've only done it once with our current car, just to prove I could, otherwise the keys stay in my pocket.

[TrevA]

What deters people is the risk of getting caught, which at the moment is quite low. You need to increase the chances of detection, either by having regular police crackdowns or some other method that doesn't involve human beings such as cameras that can see inside cars and can detect if a phone is being handheld.

Or designing cars so that you can't use a phone whilst driving e.g an alarm sounds if you take one hand off the wheel for more than 10 seconds and the car is moving.

[RickH]

...designing cars so that you can't use a phone whilst driving e.g an alarm sounds if you take one hand off the wheel for more than 10 seconds and the car is moving.

I'm not sure you'll get a lot of effort going into something like that when so much effort is going into designing cars where you can have both hands off the wheel most (if not all) of the time.

[youtube]cfRqNAhAe6c[/youtube]
(2017 in London)

[TrevA]

...designing cars so that you can't use a phone whilst driving e.g an alarm sounds if you take one hand off the wheel for more than 10 seconds and the car is moving.

I'm not sure you'll get a lot of effort going into something like that when so much effort is going into designing cars where you can have both hands off the wheel most (if not all) of the time.

[youtube]cfRqNAhAe6c[/youtube]
(2017 in London)

Eventually, the problem will solve itself, because we will all become passengers in self-driving cars.