It was just my girly gossip – but it put your life in danger

IT WON’T happen again, officer, I swear. I promise, I promise on my children’s heads because last Wednesday the Government brought the final curtain down on my worst habit and lethal addiction, and one I can’t just give up for Lent, I must give up for ever.

My worst habit by far, as terrified family members and other road-users will confirm, is using my mobile at the wheel.

I’m a guilty player in a national epidemic of fatal bad manners on the highway that on March 1, the Government cracked down on: it’s now six penalty points, a £200 fine, even a possible driving ban for some offenders. Serious stuff.

Sixty people have been killed by drivers using mobiles in the past three years, and the South East (where I live) is the worst blackspot for the accidents.

So these penalties are long overdue, but I’m terrified. It’s not as if I haven’t been caught already. A few months back, I was in the middle of a long, pleasurable gossip as I drove through West London. My iPhone sat in its cradle at eye level, on the screen Google Maps.

Yak yak yak, I went, and then, to my horror: a blue flashing light in the wing mirror.

Policeman on a motorbike eyeballing me. Caught red-handed.

The cop jabbed a finger towards the garage just up ahead on the left, so I drove in.

He hopped off, I put the handbrake on, but the car still rolled on before coming to a standstill (it’s always done that). ‘You were talking on your mobile,’ he told me sternly. ‘And your handbrake does not work. I’d say, Madam, you’re [he glanced at his watch under a leather gauntlet as if the countdown to driving doomsday had started] this close to being off the road.’

What would you do? What would an honest Injun do? Certainly not what I did.

Then, it was £100 and three points, rather than double that, but still – possibly the end of the road for me, I wasn’t sure of the penalty points system, so I panicked.

‘No I wasn’t, officer,’ I whined. ‘I was just using Google Maps!’ and pointed to the offending mobile.

‘But I’ve been behind you, watching you, for ten minutes,’ said the policeman, who clearly thought I had been dangerously distracted even if I hadn’t actually been holding the phone.

I collapsed like a pricked inflatable. I considered the options. And I did the only thing I thought I could do in the circumstances.

THE PC with red hair glared at me, and I said he was right. I was wrong. I admitted I had lied, and I apologised. And I am sorry to say he let me off. Just this once. It was my lucky day – but maybe, I allow, not yours. My name is Rachel Johnson and I am a mobile-phone addict, and therefore a danger to society. It wasn’t the first time I’d done it. It was merely the first time I’d been caught.

So this is my promise to nice PC Ginger and all other road users. This has been a lesson to me, and I hope to you.

These new laws are as tough as they need to be.

It won’t happen again, officer, I swear. It’s cold turkey, and then one day at a time.