MOTORISTS in Warrington who use mobile phones while driving are being
targeted by police during a high profile campaign to cut the number of
deaths and
injuries on Cheshire’s roads.
Police patrols in Warrington will be out in force offering road safety advice and targeting motorists who take a risk by using hand-held mobile phones whist driving.
The targeted enforcement campaign will run until the end of January. It will reinforce the message to the local community about driving whilst using a mobile phone, in a bid to reduce the numbers killed or seriously injured on Cheshire roads as a result of someone having used a mobile phone.
Cheshire Police say that people are four times more likely to crash if they use a mobile phone whilst driving. Drivers are at risk whether they use the phone hands free or hand held as they are much less aware of what’s happening on the road, fail to see road signs, react more slowly and can take longer to brake.
They also say that tweeting and driving is a new risk. A recent survey of 1,000 motorists said that although 92 per cent of people knew it was illegal to drive whilst using a hand held phone, 45 per cent sent text messages and made calls whilst at the wheel.
Motorists are being increasingly distracted by searching for phones in handbags or pockets whilst driving, viewing messages on twitter and using the internet while driving.
Many incidents police deal with involve the use of mobile phones, including a recent one when a driver drove into the back of a car at traffic lights as they had failed to stop in time.
A Cheshire Police spokesperson said: “Our advice to motorists is to remove the temptation by switching off all mobile phones, so that you can focus on the road ahead.”
A third of motorists continue to use mobile phones while driving despite morethan pne million convictions in the past decade.
Penalties for using your phone while driving:
If you’re caught using a hand-held phone while driving or riding, you can get an automatic fixed penalty notice, 3 penalty points and a fine of £60.
If a case goes to court you could be disqualified from driving or riding and get a maximum fine of £1,000. Drivers of buses or goods vehicles could get a maximum fine of £2,500.
3 Comments
Surely if they are saying that mobile communication devices should be shut off while driving, the advice should be taken up by their lone officers who drive whilst using police radios and mobile phones attached to their collars….. or are they exempt?
To me anyone caught holding and using a mobile phone when they are driving should have their phone confiscated and crushed on the spot and should also issued with points and a fine end of and no nicey nicey advice and a slap on the wrist. Might make people think twice (especially if they are on contract as they’ll still have to pay and will have to fork out for a new phone too) but then again it probably wont stop them all as the police can’t watch every driver all of the time. Maybe a 3 month ban would be a better deterrant. As for the police Baz… well it’s part of their job and if they didn’t have radio/mobile contact how would they be allerted to or respond to incidents. Same goes for the fire brigade and ambulance service and would you really want all of those to have no radio contact I know I certailnly wouldn’t ! They have all probably had more advanced driving ‘lessons’ too than most of us on the roads 😉
The police don’t need to target them, they just need to keep their eyes open. Out of 100 vehicles that I counted on Warrington Road this afternoon 34 of them were on the phone.