Calling for more cops

THERE is depressing evidence that the law on mobile phones is not working – with drivers continuing to use them illegally and recklessly, while speeding at 70mph.

Penalties were doubled last year, with six points and £200 fines brought in, but that is no deterrent when motorists believe, probably correctly, that they will not be caught.

Yet we cannot let drivers gamble with the lives of other road users.

Ministers and the police need initiatives to change behaviour, just as Britain did with the “clunk-click, every trip” seatbelts campaign and the moves against drink-driving.

They worked and a concerted public education campaign would help now. But even more importantly, so too would more traffic police.

Drastic reductions in recent years from Tory austerity cuts, many when Theresa May was Home Secretary, have been deadly.

The fear of being caught is the only way to stop a hardened minority who, regrettably, are not instinctively law-abiding.

Saving people from the crashes, terrible injuries and fatalities caused by drivers on the phone is worth getting this right.