What can we do about drivers on phones....

Dealing with phone users is honestly the simplest, easiest, biggest, cheapest change you could make to ensure safer roads. On the motorway you can guarantee that the driver who is lazily bouncing around in their lane is on the phone. HGV drivers drifting on and off the hard shoulder. Middle-lane hoggers at 55mph.

I don't see that many people actually making a call with it clamped to their heads (apart from white van drivers), but the nodding head as they look at it down in their laps is almost routine.

Clearly points aren't working. How about we step up to an automatic six-month ban and a confiscation of the phone at the side of the road?

You could be the CyclingMikey of Sussex.

Standard fine in Norway now converts to about 800 GBP and an arse kicking from the police.  That concentrates minds

You could always do what this guy does.....

https://www.youtube.com/@CyclingMikey

Edit.  Beaten to it

I equally get wound up by parents on a long tail with two children riding with one hand while taking on the phone with the other.   I might wave at a driver if I see them but I try not to get too wound up by it as it just ruins my day.  It's not really the cape I want to wear

Standard fine in Norway now converts to about 800 GBP

Getting the police to increase the fine would be a great idea.  Even if it never happens the publicity is always good

I have no idea how cyclingmikey does it.  I could never handle that much antagonism day to day (it's fine occasionally though)

And mandated therapy, at their expense.

If you can't put your phone down you have a problem.

parents on a long tail with two children riding with one hand while taking on the phone with the other.

I know not what means this.

People are obsessed with their phones! I know it's not as dangerous, but cinema, gigs, anywhere! stupid people just can't put them away. A change ain't gonna come til the apocolypse!

standards just seem to be getting worse.  lack of police enforcement must be up there with the reasons why

Is  not not possible to prevent phones from working in cars?

There is no imperative to be connected 24 7.

The other thing that needs to change is infotainment systems in cars.

Mine asks if I want to read texts while I am driving why?

Cars need less distractions and less distracting  tech crap.

Clearly points aren’t working.

I'm not sure that it's just  a case of the sanctions not working, I think it's down to the fact that the law is properly enforced & people know that they can do it with impunity. I see if frequently when out cycling and walking.

Tougher sanctions would certainly help, but it needs to be enforced.

Clearly points aren’t working. How about we step up to an automatic six-month ban...

You could reintroduce capital punishment and it wouldn't work. The apprehension of getting caught is the biggest barrier to offending followed by a swift process (FPN with PP).

We've got the swift process and just need to catch a few more now

...and a confiscation of the phone at the side of the road?

Deemed disproportionate. We weren't allowed to seize them as evidence that a denier had been using one

"Standard fine in Norway now converts to about 800 GBP and an arse kicking from the police"

You can increase the punishments as much as you want but with seemingly no-one about to enforce the law what's the point?  That's why people do it.  They know the likelihood of being caught is hovering around zero.  What amazes me is the people in expensive modern cars that you know have bluetooth but the driver has their phone in their hand.  I had a new Range Rover pass me when I was cycling last week and the driver was holding their phone horizontally in front of their face using it on speaker.  I can't believe a car like that doesn't have a function to remove the need to be such a dick.

On the motorway you can guarantee that the driver who is lazily bouncing around in their lane is on the phone. HGV drivers drifting on and off the hard shoulder. Middle-lane hoggers at 55mph.

Oh 100%... I'll say to my kids "look.. bet they are on their phone" as we approach cars doing this... and BOOM I'm always right..

Cycling Mikey is a wee hero of mine, BUT i've not the time to hang about doing what he does...

I've honestly thought about getting an insta360 on a 'stalk', and just filming my commute (bike OR car) from "above" and then just submitting clips day after day!

DrP

The other thing that needs to change is infotainment systems in cars.

They're better than folks constantly looking at their phones though.  It surely can't be that difficult technologically to enable in new cars a mandatory "Turn off your phone to start your car" function, or a "Place your phone in this box to start your car" that above a certain speed just locks itself. Other than a concerted traffic cop campaign, and some targeted harsh penalties, I can't see the public changing their habits anytime soon, phones are clearly more addictive than the worrying about the fact that you might be distracted enough to kill some-one.

What can we do about drivers on phones…. 
shoot them.

A little while ago some knob drove straight over a zebra crossing I was walking across, clearly staring down at his phone in his lap.

I think this could be a fantastic use of AI operated cameras/camera vans...

The ability for AI to trawl through hours of 360 video images to find "driver with phone in hand" should be easy enough.

Litearally, jsut the act of being in a car, on the road, with a phone in hand should equal immediate 3 points and a £500 fine.
That would soon stop people.

DrP

I think this could be a fantastic use of AI operated cameras/camera vans…

Bindun, 2022 in Devon and Cornwall https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/ai-backed-traffic-cameras-can-catch-driver-using-a-mobile-phone-even-at-186mph

Is not not possible to prevent phones from working in cars?

There is no imperative to be connected 24 7.

That would affect passengers more than the driver I reckon. Kids in the back seat watching a film, passenger talking to someone, even just using the phone as a sat nav.

Besides, it's once again trying to use tech to solve a problem - the solution is not yet more software to determine if it's in a car and turn it off, it's proper enforcement and meaningful fines.

This is a huge issue around here. When we walk to school we walk along a long straight road with traffic lights on a fairly short timer, so traffic builds up a lot. Yesterday I counted 17 drivers along the road playing/using their phones. Drivers would be on their phone, move forward 5m and then go straight back to their phone (if they stopped using it at all) like some sort of addiction.

I have thought about contacting local police to see if they could do a plain clothes op as they would catch so many people. Seems to be a variety of drivers from young people new to driving (would lose their licence if caught) to bus drivers and a cement lorry driver the other week.

Yeah , see it all the time, really pees me off. Then there's a new thing I'm noticing up my end, a new type of driver who thinks rural speed limit zones need not apply to them- 50 in a 30.. 60 in a 40 past a school sort of thing. Seemingly zero awareness of the changing limits, maybe they're looking at the phone so much they miss them - or maybe they're these sovereign individual types who won't obey the rules. Certainly no-one around to stop them. There's been an epidemic of stupidity since the er' epidemic.

I'd be happy for there to be technology in future cars that prevents exceeding the rural speed limits, and block phone usage too. The tech to do that is already there.

Sniper warning shot to the engine block,  and insurance won't cover the repair

When you here teachers say that a new generation are now so addicted to their phones that they can't concentrate long enough to get past reading a few pages of a book. It isn't a great surprise what's going to happen when they learn to drive and are tasked with having to concentrate long enough to get between a town or two.

I equally get wound up by parents on a long tail with two children riding with one hand while taking on the phone with the other.

They're doing 20kph. What harm are they going to do to you even if they did hit you? It's the head-down drivers who are the menace.

"Literally, jsut the act of being in a car, on the road, with a phone in hand should equal immediate 3 points and a £500 fine.

That would soon stop people."

It's already £200 fine and 6 points which doesn't seem to deter many drivers.

The police could easily book a stack of drivers by putting a plain clothes officer on an appropriate junction, but it is obviously not something that is being prioritised among all their other responsibilities. A few years ago I submitted a complaint to the police about a lorry driver leaving the ferry with an open laptop mounted on his dash (he had a wee frame fitted to hold it in place). They never even replied to me. I know there are some prosecutions, but it feels like it is one of those things that has been tacitly accepted because "it doesn't really matter, and everyone does it". A bit like the bad old days where it was OK to drive home drunk from the pub as long as you were careful...

It surely can’t be that difficult technologically to enable in new cars a mandatory “Turn off your phone to start your car” function

If it was that easy, a government somewhere (a Scandi one probably) would have legislated for it by now.  Even if it was technologically possible, how would it affect passengers? Emergency calls? Vehicle connectivity for crash detection and reporting etc.

or a “Place your phone in this box to start your car” that above a certain speed just locks itself.

The idiots would just have a cheap second phone to put in the box.

I think the nearest we might have to a solution is mentioned above. AI monitoring of pooled camera footage to ID offenders then hit them hard with a ban and massive fine. Vehicle confiscation and prison time for a second offence.

When you here teachers say that a new generation are now so addicted to their phones that they can’t concentrate long enough to get past reading a few pages of a book. It isn’t a great surprise what’s going to happen when they learn to drive and are tasked with having to concentrate long enough to get between a town or two

But it's not just young drivers, it's everybody!

I’m not sure that it’s just  a case of the sanctions not working, I think it’s down to the fact that the law is properly enforced & people know that they can do it with impunity. I see if frequently when out cycling and walking.

Tougher sanctions would certainly help, but it needs to be enforced.

Bingo. Same here in Ireland - drivers do it with impunity because they know they won't get caught because the police a) aren't present at all and b) aren't enforcing any of the basic rules of the road, such as red lights, mobile phones in cars, speeding etc.

Get the police to do their damn jobs - 3 points by default and a decent fine for anyone caught doing it, and a visible presence on the roads of police actually paying attention to this, would stop people pretty sharply.

Notice how drink driving, while perhaps climbing a little in recent years, is nothing like as prevalent as in North America - because there's been a years-long campaign of checking, enforcement and proper punishments.

But it’s not just young drivers, it’s everybody!

100% I see people of all ages, up to properly old people doing this.  Lazy stereotyping to see this as a young person problem imo.

Is not not possible to prevent phones from working in cars?

Not really. Even if you tried a blanket approach of disabling the phone (which then has problems for passengers and also legitimate driver use eg streaming music/updating traffic info) it would be hard to do effectively.

Firstly you would need apple/google support which would be unlikely and then there is the question how to measure someone is driving. The best way would be to use gps but then you break navigation for me whilst all the ****s would just switch off gps and keep talking.  Other location options (tracking speed etc) are far less accurate and so would likely knock out phones for people on trains etc.

One thing I really hate are the bleeping touchscreens to control all the car functions now.

It's a shit situation but let's face it, it is unlikely that anything will be done.

There is no money to fund the police to actually police it.

There is a large swathe of drivers who think that phone driving is acceptable and cannot comprehend that there is anything wrong with it.

Which leads to: any political party who made moves to actually implement existing laws, yet alone increase them,  would be fearful of committing political suicide. Anything punitive to drivers seems to be a vote loser even if it is plainly A GOOD THING.

See also - speed controllers, black boxes etc etc.

Anything punitive to drivers seems to be a vote loser

I'm pretty sure that the opposite is true. These interventions are popular, it's just that there's a very vocal minority who resist them.

Drink driving is socially unacceptable, that’s why it’s less common.
We need phone use to be socially unacceptable, at the moment, it isn’t.

See them all the time on my bike commute and only a tiny bit at start and end is on the roads, caught the tram home from central Manchester one day this week and the in the elevated position I lost count of the number of drivers with phone in hands, easy pickings for a police officer on the tram with a camera like they sometimes do with lorries on the motorways. A few weeks ago I'd stopped on bike to cross a slip road to join M60 and thought someone had died/passed out as could see the top of his head as he was looking down so much but its ok as he glanced up as he joined the slip road....

Standard fine in Norway now converts to about 800 GBP and an arse kicking from the police.  That concentrates minds

It's around 500 gbp here in Queensland and it includes cyclists bit makes bugger all difference. Drives me nuts.

“Place your phone in this box to start your car”

That's actually kinda what I've done to myself, I had an Android Auto touch screen thingie in my van for Sat Nav, Tunes etc but asked them to route the cable so that in order for it to be connected the phone has to be shut away in the glove compartment out of sight and not within easy reach.

Even I found it too damn tempting to check it when it pinged otherwise.

Agree on the Cycling Mikey comments, much like 20 mph zones and anti-flytipping campaigns, they're pointless without enforcement and funding for said enforcement, get a camera and dob them in, in an ideal world with well funded police we wouldn't have to do this but...

See it all the time also.  It's not hard to spot who is using a phone, as said the glancing down, varying speeds and general shit driving (above the already shit standard of driving).

I remember a few years ago when I was out on my motorbike waiting at traffic lights when a young girls pulls up alongside me on her phone, tapping away.

I knocked on here window and said "it's people like you who knock people like me off their bikes - please put your phone away".  Sheepishly she did, but I suspect the phone was back out within minutes of the lights changing.

Let's face it, most folk just don't give a toss.

And walking around a town/city centre, it's like a bloody zombie apocalypse with so many phone folk head down glued to their phones, shuffling and stumbling along.

Place your phone in this box to start your car

Would we people who use Waze or Google maps have to go back to our TomToms? Not sure the battery is any good in mine. 🙁

Yeah it's an enormous and scary problem.

I don't really see what can be done effectively to stop it.

I often wonder when I see the 20th driver with their eyes towards their laps, whether it would actually be safer to allow the use of phones as long as they were in a dash mounted cradle.

I mean, at least their eyes would be in the right ballpark..

Terrible.

I’ve honestly thought about getting an insta360

I had a few instances on yesterdays ride.

I have a 360 and might posted a few as well. Its epidemic.

BUt will it just fuel the bike hate more 🙁

I don't see the obvious evidence of phone addiction in my age group or older, atleast not to the point where its a problem - this appears to be a product of a giant social experiment carried out on a younger cohort, its not going well. Or, if you think it's bad now, it's likely to get much worse as 'Z' take to the road. Happy to be proven wrong.

So I think i need to use "operation crackdown" a bit more..

It's a way of submitting driving offences in sussex; see  https://ssrp.shinyapps.io/dataportal/ to look at the map of "using mobile phone" offences reported.
So it seems Sussex ARE looking at reports.. not sure what the prosecution conversion is.

DrP

EDIT - so I actually submitted dashcam footage earlier this year of a purposeful dangerous undertake, leading me to have to swerve to avoid a crash. I see you can check the status, which pleasingly was:
"This report has been set to prosecution. This means the driver will either be offered a retraining course, given a conditional points and fine offer or sent to court."

They might have to set up a "whiney DrP file" soon eh!

I don’t see the obvious evidence of phone addiction in my age group or older, atleast not the point where its a problem – this appears to be a product of a giant social experiment carried out on a younger cohort, its not going well.

Again, it's not just a "younger cohort". I see people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and older doing this almost every time I drive.  All age groups, of legal driving age upwards do it equally in my experience. You are fooling yourself if you think this is mainly young people imo.

How about we step up to an automatic six-month ban

Ban needs to be immediate then endorsed in court rather than the current system where they can continue driving until banned.

People don’t think they’ll get caught though, issue is under-resourcing of roads policing (which seems odd given that it’s a priority for the public but not the police forces, accepting resource is limited)

There was something on the local AT group about a working group tightening up National best practice for third-party video reporting. You’d have thought this would be an easy win given HMG’s stated aim of making streets safer.

Agree with the "all ages" sentiment... Though it's certainly. in my eye, more evident from 17 up to about 50..

Probably peaking in men aged 30-45.

DrP

Yeah, what I'm saying is, if you think it's bad now... the behavioural traits that lead to it being a problem are only going to get worse as time goes by...

Make it 7 points so if you are caught twice in 5 years it's an automatic 1 year ban . No hardship please allowed.tough .

Make it a minimum of £700 fine , double for second offence in 5 years.

Allow a kick back of 10% of the fine to anyone leading to a successful conviction of phone use. They did it with drink driving back in the 90s.

Ask insurance companies to double the insurance of people who refuse to fit a tamper proof camera that records the driver while the engine is running. Remove the " no I wasn't" to prove you weren't by showing me the video. The tech is so cheap now. Insurance void if you point the camera elsewhere.

What amazes me is the people in expensive modern cars that you know have bluetooth but the driver has their phone in their hand.

.... And on top of that they're just pulling out of a car park or a side street where they've probably just been parked. It is very odd.

I have the same situation as mentioned above, slow moving queue of traffic up to a roundabout on my walk or ride to work every day. It's sometimes every other driver is on their phone.

I get it's not prioritised by police, but maybe it should be for a short time. Years ago speeding was slightly more acceptable than it is now, but the police round here suddenly clamped down on it over a few months, people everywhere (including me admittedly) were surprised to be getting done for 35 in a 30, things like that. There's one stretch of road near me which is 30, but not built up/residential. When we were teenagers, my mates were chatting to the cops doing a speed check there and they said they didn't bother doing anyone until over 43mph! Anyway, they clamped down and there was a distinct drop in the average speed of drivers round here. They probably need to do it again though tbh.

They should just do a 6 month period of stringent checks, high fines and points, it will start to deter people, at least for a while.

roadside camera's to detect drivers on the phone are coming to catch people. Given how big a revenue raiser it will be.... they will be everywhere soon

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/uks-first-free-standing-ai-road-safety-camera/

There is no money to fund the police to actually police it.

Make the fine enough to cover the costs and problem solved.

Wife’s nephew got a warning phone call off his insurers because his mate had been using his phone to choose some music in the car, and the black box saw that his phone was unlocked while driving - the tech does exist.

I don’t get why black boxes aren’t more widespread.

I don’t see the obvious evidence of phone addiction in my age group or older, atleast not the point where its a problem – this appears to be a product of a giant social experiment carried out on a younger cohort, its not going well.

I do. Parents ignoring kids and scrolling. Older folk on facebook all day consuming junk. Mobile addiction affects everyone, it's just that some of us who are older have had experience of habits and recognise it happening and know how to break them. SM on phones is an addictive thing like cigarettes imo. Kids with mobiles have little hope resisting it all. We had Donkey Kong hand-helds when we were kids, some of this is nothing new but the way SM works creates a really hook.

Drivers on phones .. dunno. Enforcement and penalties are all there can be. Same for the stink of skunk coming from cars, speeding, road rage etc - there's no enforcement so we are where we are. I hate almost everything about car culture tbh*, they're ~20% practical transport and the rest is all negative. I don't fight it, we're outnumbered by idiots.. just be defensive.

*If you have a nice old or classic car and that's your car culture, you're great.. I love all that stuff.

They’re doing 20kph. What harm are they going to do to you even if they did hit you?

Please, give your head a wobble!

It would be trivial to get the majority of the problem solved in latest gen cars with phone as key and NFC readers in the car.

Couple of lines of code to ensure that the car would stop running if you don't have your phone on the reader.
Or cut the infotainment, or have loads of chimes, bings and bongs.
Every time you come to a halt without the phone on the reader, the handbrake comes on and the powerpack shuts down.

Most journeys are solo journeys, so there won't be A.N.Other person in the car to do it for you, not many people will want to have a second phone with phone as key on it (in case they lose it), majority of phone use is at low speeds in traffic too.

Probably cut the problem by 80% overnight.

I don’t get why black boxes aren’t more widespread.

I think that or Mert's suggestion would need to be enforced by law first, no car brand will add something like this and make their product less appealing to a load of phone-addicted customers. Or it'd take a safety-rep brand like Volvo to go first and shame other brands into doing it?

100% agree, people staring down at their phone whilst driving boils my piss. TBH the general standard of driving is shocking.

Massive fines, even the death penalty wouldn't stop people as they know the chances of getting caught are so slim.

The only way to do it is fund more traffic police. But that costs money. If it wasn't so open to potential corruption/abuse I'd say, increase the fines and the coppers get 50% to fund themselves. They'd soon be quids in.

Some of the internal camera monitoring of the driver (that is being legislated for in some markets) will be able to detect a distracted driver and make it really annoying to continue driving once it's flagged that you're distracted.

I've been a guinea pig on the research for this, and its a) really annoying, b) not very good yet and c) incredibly racist.

I cycle through Surrey into London a couple of times a month and the amount of people using mobiles is literally off the charts. Not much winds me up these days, but it's such selfish behaviour that can have severe consequences to other road users. Totally unacceptable!

My punishment would be an instant 12 month ban, no excuses, no caveats. How that would be enforced i have no idea. I've sen some portable cameras on the A3 that apparently were to 'catch' offenders, but that was months ago and have no idea what their success rate was?

I also see the same selfish behaviour on the motorways too. I did come with a business idea which would feature an unmarked car with a modified interior to allow a 360deg camera to film drivers using their mobiles! I reckon on a 100 mile journey i capture a dozen offenders easily!

It’s not possible to ever have enough police to deal with the problem given how prevalent it is. I have no issue with using ‘technology’ to deal with the problems that technology causes. If it’s already a 6 pointer and fine, so we’ve already decided it breaks the law, we just need a way of enforcing it properly rather than being negligent.

I also see the same selfish behaviour on the motorways too. I did come with a business idea which would feature an unmarked car with a modified interior to allow a 360deg camera to film drivers using their mobiles! I reckon on a 100 mile journey i capture a dozen offenders easily!

Try doing it on a motorbike. Filter down any dual carriageway queue into any big city at any morning rush hour. A few runs and you would catch literally thousands of people.

needs some of this doesn't it - swap the booze for phones

'Modern' infotainment systems are nearly as bad. Particularly touchscreen only ones.

They’re doing 20kph. What harm are they going to do to you even if they did hit you? It’s the head-down drivers who are the menace.

Riding with 30+ kg of high up load on the back of a long bike makes things quite unstable compared to a normal bike. You need both hands on the bars unless you're doing something essential such as indicating. The risk is more to the kids on the back than 3rd parties, but even then I wouldn't be lining up to get hit by a cargo bike with 3 people on it - total mass of mine with 2 kids on was about 150kg.

I think it also doesn't help that cars are too easy to drive and too disconnected from the outside world. Practically, you don't actually have to concentrate very hard to drive a modern car at 70mph on the motorway and if you spend 2 hours a day stuck in traffic jams commuting you're going to be stationary and bored off your t!ts most of that time. (one reason I'd never take a job where I couldn't ride to work)

I'm lucky/stupid enough to own a mid-life-crisis soft top car. Its noisy, windy, uncomfortable, requires some physical strength, but its involving and it takes application and focus to actually make it do what I want. There's just no time for ****ing around with phones.

Compared to say, a modern SUV or electric car - aircon, good sound proofing, auto gears, auto lights (which don't turn on in the fog, it seems), comfy heated/massage seats, music, overassisted steering, overservoed brakes etc. Its like being sat in front of the telly with the sound turned down - how many drivers are actually, viscerally,  aware of the kinetic energy inherent in their 2T+ vehicle and the damage it could do?

My 2p'orth would be to make mandatory retesting a thing, every 5 years max, reduced time gaps for new drivers, the elderly and anyone with points etc. I have to do it for all my plant tickets, most of which doesn't go over walking pace. If nothing else, it makes you keep up to date with changing legislation.

Beyond just the phones issue - it needs to be harder to get a license, harder to keep it long term and it needs to be seen as a valued privilege to have one, not as a "right".

The worst culprits where I am are delivery drivers tapping away whilst riding around on mopeds - often end up riding alongside them as they half wheel me down a hill, I swear they barely look at the road.

Any sort of enforcement like a traffic warden for phone use would easily be self-sustaining, if not highly profitable.

I see it all day, every day from my truck cab.  So easy to see what people have in their laps or tucked away below the window line.  The worst development for me is the growing number of people who don't call anymore, they video call.  See it on the street where it's antisocial but when driving both people are aware of what is happening.

We just need a targeted campaign that's consistently running to make any progress on the issue though and with the chronic underfunding of the police it really is a low priority.  The only way to tackle it now I can think of is to authorise private companies to collect the evidence via roadside cameras etc but the idea of privatising the work of the Police doesn't sit easy with me.

Agree with the “all ages” sentiment… Though it’s certainly. in my eye, more evident from 17 up to about 50..

Probably peaking in men aged 30-45.

DrP

Most of the ones I have seen have been women in the 17-30 bracket. Also seen a lot of "mature" ladies doing it too. I'm higher up in the car/van so you see more of it looking down. Perhaps blokes are better at hiding it.

Lots of time you see it in the rear view mirror. Or you are sitting behind a car in traffic and see the tell tale whatsap gap (Cycling Mikey) . Long press of the horn for those !

My vehicle can read out and dictate texts , I mostly use voice control for sat nav etc. There really is no need to touch your phone in a modern car, even when you need to keep in contact whilst on the road.

Interesting note on demographics there.  I was about to post that it is probably married blokes working their side-dating apps.  The car is a good place to get the privacy they need to do this.

Try doing it on a motorbike. Filter down any dual carriageway queue into any big city at any morning rush hour. A few runs and you would catch literally thousands of people.

It's a lot easier to spot at this time of year as well - dark(er) mornings, there'll be a telltale glow from the driver's right knee as the balance the phone there and try and scroll / glance down. I used to see it loads when I was cycling down the outside of stationary traffic.

Over on the UK Government thread is a lot of talk about the "£22bn black hole" and other stuff around the country's finances, tax rises and austerity to fix it all... I swear you could fix a massive chunk of it with a big nationwide crackdown on driving standards. Speeding and phone use are the two easy wins, you can do the majority of those with cameras but you'd solve SO many issues with a concerted campaign of road safety with appropriately high fines.

It is the manufacturers of the phones that are to blame. They track, trace and know our every movement. They Gyroscopes in them can detect our directions and speed of movement- as can the GPS.

They should have an inbuilt 'I am not working as you a driving' safety mechanism.

Clearly tech firms rule the roost.

Clearly points aren’t working. How about we step up to an automatic six-month ban and a confiscation of the phone at the side of the road?

People need to believe there's a probability of getting caught and points/fine applied for the deterrent to have any effect, right now they don't believe they'll get caught. Frankly I think that sits with the police, they need to be detecting and going after Drivers on their phones. I do think a driving bans should be explored, it's as dangerous as Drink driving according to some studies (right?), as for confiscating the phone, Nah... confiscate the car.

I do think a fresh campaign is needed, and it probably needs to draw parallels with drink driving, some of the best efforts we've had at making our roads safer have used good old fashioned stigmatisation, how many people do you know who would proudly drive about pissed and without a seatbelt on today? The only real dick moves that seem to be more accepted these days are speeding and phone use.

Get caught drink driving and you're a proper social pariah (unless you move in very scummy circles), I feel like it should really be the same for "phone driving"...

I don’t see that many people actually making a call with it clamped to their heads (apart from white van drivers), but the nodding head as they look at it down in their laps is almost routine.

The irony is that probably actually having a conversation is one of the least distracting ways to use a phone!  Not that i am condoning doing that - but every other use is worse.

Clearly points aren’t working. How about we step up to an automatic six-month ban and a confiscation of the phone at the side of the road?

Well points already mean:

- for new drivers retaking your driving test (theory and practical)
- for everyone, if you get caught twice in 3 years you are banned for 6 months
- anyone who has a very heavy right foot or is shoddy with their insurance paperwork will get banned if caught on their phone

so I don't think the penalty is the problem - the problem is a lack of enforcement.  A cop could spend the whole day at my local traffic lights and never have time to deal with anything else.  Contrary to popular opinion though police don't get to keep the fines so there is little incentive for such easy pickings other than improving road safety.  Weirdly camera safety partnerships are usually set up in a way that they are only incentivised to catch speeders and not other routine offences.

They should have an inbuilt ‘I am not working as you a driving’ safety mechanism

But then you're also preventing anyone using a mobile device above a certain speed, what about passengers? I really don't think it is the mobile phone manufacturer's fault, anymore than drink driving is the fault of the makers of alcoholic beverages. It's a choice to knowingly break the law and use a mobile whilst driving, lets not make excuses for the idiots that do it. That AI camera system sounds a great idea to me, let's hope it's rolled out nationally.

I agree phone use by drivers does seem to be increasing! It's a problem that could be solved, by a combination of more enforcement from Police & use of AI cameras, and could be paid for from the fines. But no government wants to commit to a "war on motorists" as the tabloids would paint it, so it'll never happen.

Some cars already have driver monitoring cameras. Make these mandatory for all new cars, just like we did for seatbelts… link it to the drivers phone and block phone use for driver, car could detect passenger phone present and allow that usage.

For a lot of the drivers skills on display out there, DoucheMusks fully autonomous uber taxi things can’t come quickly enough.

I see it all day, every day from my truck cab

On the subject of truck drivers - whilst crossing the road I saw the driver of an articulated car transporter eating a pot noodle whilst stopped at the lights - I could see the steam off the pot noodle, so it was hot, and he had a proper spoon, so it suggests a regular thing. How's that going to go when he spills it in his lap at 56mph, with 30 odd ton behind him..?

If professional drivers, who are reliant on their driving license for their livelihood, can't be trusted to act appropriately, there's little chance of the majority of other drivers doing much better.

(that's not to tar all truckies with the same brush - but I do feel that anyone who makes a living from driving - taxis, delivery drivers, HGV & PSV, should 100%, without fail, be the ones who set the highest standards of driving for the rest of us to aspire too. All too often - especially taxis and multidrop van drivers fall SO far short of that)

What about, if you provide evidence of another person using a phone while driving, if they are convicted you get 50% of the fine

You'll basically turn the entire country into snitches, neighbours reporting neighbours, and a breakdown of social cohesion. But I imagine you'd see a steep drop off in illegal phone use

Like much crime it goes relatively unpunished because our sentencing guidelines are way too soft. IMHO any crime with a chosen intent should have at least two zeros added to the current fine, complete and final loss of the vehicle and a 5 year ban. Stuff any hardship plea. Mega fines would pay for a dedicated and ring fenced motoring police to take this burden off the normal police forces. Speeding, dodgy loads, over dark tints, failure to indicate. Everything on the road. Lets say £1000 or may be ten times that for every mph over the limit sort of thing.

Small fine/points is ok on a first offender, as long as nobody is harmed.

2nd conviction would bring a serious charge with a large fine and something like 8 points

3rd conviction even larger fine, 3 year ban, and even confiscation of the vehicle if they are the owner(or increase fine/ban if they aren't

4th conviction. 1 month prison sentence plus fine and 2 year ban.