MPs recommend ban on hands-free calls

● Higher penalties proposed ● Mobile laws ‘need work’

Cross-party committee calls for fresh smartphone crackdown

MAKING hands-free mobile phone calls when driving should be illegal, while current penalties for using mobiles behind the wheel should be toughened up, according to the House of Commons’ Transport Select Committee.

The cross-party group of MPs launched an enquiry into the subject of phone use when driving in March 2019, consulting with a number of academics and road safety experts to draw their conclusions.

The committee heard that making a hands-free phone call is as distracting as making a call when holding the handset, and affects driving standards as much as, if not more than, being at the drink-drive limit. While recognising that enforcing a hands-free ban would be difficult, and that businesses often need to be able to speak with staff out on the road, the committee says the Government should consider “extending the ban on driving while using a hand-held mobile phone or other device to hands-free devices”.

The committee also recommended that despite the penalty for using a hand-held mobile when driving doubling to six points and a £200 fine in March 2017, the authorities should “consider whether [the penalties] should be increased to better reflect the serious risks created by drivers committing this offence”. The Transport Select Committee does not set legislation itself, but it is responsible for scrutinising the Department for Transport’s policies, and its findings are taken seriously.

MPs also say the law on using mobile phones when driving should be rewritten. Current rules preclude using a hand-held mobile behind the wheel for “interactive communication”, and a recent court case overturned a motorist’s conviction because he was filming an accident, not using his phone to communicate interactively.

The number of people killed or injured in collisions when a driver was using a mobile has increased by 52 per cent between 2009 and 2017, but convictions for using a mobile behind the wheel have fallen by more than two thirds since 2011. The committee heard that falling police traffic officer numbers have led drivers to believe they could get away with the offence; and to help combat this, using a phone when driving should become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.

Commenting on the report, Edmund King, president of the AA said; “It is crucial that we continue to raise public awareness of the dangers of using a phone at the wheel and change attitudes, as we have done with drink driving.

“Enforcement is also key because offenders tend to think the chance of being caught is minimal.”

PAGE 114: Rutherford on hand-held phones

“It is crucial that we continue to raise public awareness of the dangers of using a phone at the wheel and change attitudes to its use as we have with drink driving” Edmund King President of the AA