As road safety charity Brake launches a national campaign for safer driving this week, it is also calling on the government to extend the ban on using mobile phones in cars to include hands-free phones.
The campaign is aimed at preventing crashes which Brake believes are caused by multi-tasking at the wheel. The campaign appeals to drivers to turn off their phones or put them in the boot, and urges everyone to refuse to speak on the phone to people who are driving.
Statistics revealed by the charity, obtained as a result of Freedom of Information requests from DVLA, show that more than half a million UK drivers (575,000) have points on their licence for using their mobile phone at the wheel or being otherwise distracted. One in 15 (6.5%) of these drivers have six points or more for driving distracted and four in five (78%) are male.
As a result of changes introduced on 16th August 2013, drivers caught using a hand-held phone at the wheel to call or text face an increased fixed penalty notice of £100 and three points, or may be offered a course instead of taking points. In 2012, according to Brake, more than 10,000 drivers caught using their phone at the wheel took a ‘what’s driving us’ course, instead of opting for points.
In more serious cases drivers may still have to go to court and face disqualification and a maximum fine of £1,000. Drivers who cause a crash and kill someone while using a phone could face up to 14 years in prison.
"We’re living in an age when being constantly connected is the norm; more and more of us have smartphones, and find it hard to switch off, even for a minute. While there are enormous benefits to this new technology, it’s also posing dangerous temptations to drivers to divert their concentration away from the critical task at hand, often putting our most vulnerable road users in danger," said Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive, Brake.
She called on the Government "to do more to tackle driver distraction, by extending the ban to hands-free phones at the wheel, and further upping fines for the potentially deadly offence of driving distracted."
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