Now let’s ban Car Pool Karaoke And bring back red phone boxes

THE Mail has won a landmark victory in persuading government ministers to double the punishment for motorists who use mobile phones at the wheel. Drivers caught talking, texting or updating their status — whatever the hell that means — will be fined £200 and given six points on their licence.

A second conviction will result in an automatic six-month ban. The same sentence will apply to younger drivers after just one offence.

not before time. Motorists who use mobile phones while they are driving are one of the great modern curses.

How many times have you seen drivers drifting across the road because they are concentrating on their phone, not looking where they are going?

I’ve lost count of the near misses I’ve had on the M25 because some imbecile is sending an urgent text or swiping right on Grindr, hoping for a quick knee-trembler in the bushes at the next service area.

Others haven’t been so lucky, which is why the news that tougher penalties are being introduced has been greeted with a mixture of relief and jubilation by relatives of those killed by drivers distracted by their phones.

Sometimes when I’m driving, I get the impression that I’m the only person on the road who isn’t on the phone. Look, I’m no Luddite, but I simply can’t understand why so many people are umbilically linked to their electronic devices.

Driving anywhere today is an ordeal, without trying to spend the whole journey checking emails or playing Pokemon Go!

Think I’m exaggerating? Reports over the weekend suggested that police have apprehended a number of drivers cruising the streets searching for Pokemon avatars on their iPhones.

The Government says it wants to make using a mobile at the wheel as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving. I’d argue that it’s ten times worse than getting behind the wheel after a couple of pints of shandy.

AnD before the usual suspects start bouncing up and down, I’m not — repeat not — endorsing drunk-driving. At least a bloke on the way home from the pub goes out of his way to stick to the speed limit and keeps his beady eyes on the road ahead. The mobile phone maniacs are completely oblivious to anything going on around them.

It’s not just phones, either. Modern cars have far too much technology lurking behind the dashboard. There’s nothing more infuriating than those automatic local radio traffic updates from every Mickey Mouse station within a 90-mile radius which constantly interrupt Ken Bruce’s PopMaster on Radio 2.

Just as Ken’s asking: ‘In which

year did Freda Payne have a hit

with Band Of . . .’ up pops some dopey bird from Radio Wisbech with news of a tractor crash on the A47. Why are you telling me?

And even though you knew the answer was 1970, it still drives you mad — especially when the traffic report drones on for another five minutes and you miss the Record of the Week.

On Saturday, I spent about half an hour sitting on my driveway trying to turn the damn thing off. There used to be a button on the radio, marked TP. In for On, out for OFF. Simples, as the meerkats say.

now, the command is hidden behind half a dozen sub-menus in the on-board computer, which appears to be based on the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise with an operating system designed by Alan Turing.

It’s no good consulting the manual, always the size of War And Peace and written in Flowerpot Man. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Eventually, my son worked out how to turn it off and sanity was restored.

But if I’d tried to fix it while I was on the move, I’d have been responsible for the biggest pile-up since the legendary car chase scene near the end of The Blues Brothers movie.

And don’t get me started on satnav. Those brain-dead idiots in juggernauts wedged between two cottages down narrow country lanes, or up to their axles in the River Stour, are the least of our problems.

The big problem with satnav is that drivers stop thinking for themselves and spend the entire journey staring at the on-screen directions, rather than looking at the road and checking their mirrors.

That’s why the new in-car touchscreens are such a frightening development. A number of manufacturers are now installing iPad-style interfaces in their cars. You can absolutely guarantee that most motorists will spend all their time pressing apps and not paying attention to what they are supposed to be doing — namely driving safely from A to B.

If you give them the technology, they will use it. And the result will be mayhem and madness.

It makes you wonder how we ever found our way anywhere, armed only with a dog-eared A-Z and a Castrol Road Map Of Great Britain.

The only hazard I ever faced at the wheel of my old Morris 1000 Traveller was getting clocked in the face by the transistor radio swinging from the rear-view mirror.

So let’s ban all touchscreens and satnavs and revive press-button radios. The tough new penalties for using a mobile at the wheel should be just the start.

We could set an example by imposing six-month prison sentences on anyone taking part in Car Pool Karaoke, the craze for singing in cars popularised by comedian James Corden — now turned into a car insurance advert.

next in line should be people who use mobile phones in the street, clattering into fellow pedestrians because they’re too busy texting. After that, we should turn our attention to banning all mobile phones on trains, on buses, in pubs and restaurants.

Call me old-fashioned, but why do people go out for a drink, or a meal, with someone and then spend all their time nattering to someone else on a mobile? You see whole families sitting round tables, every single one of them staring at their hand-held devices instead of talking to each other. They might just as well have stayed at home.

As I said, I’m not against new technology. But if people must spend their lives yakking into mobile phones, they should be encouraged to do it privately.

Here’s where the State could take a lead, with a bit of ‘nudge’ therapy. We should ban the use of all mobile phones in public, but provide a network of ‘safe spaces’ where they can be used without disturbing anyone else.

Once we’ve scrapped the HS2 railway, which will only be over-run by tiresome ‘executives’ braying into their mobiles, we should divert some of the millions saved to building special soundproof ‘communications modules’ on every street corner.

Let’s call them ‘Telephone Kiosks’ and paint them red so they are easy to spot.

You never know, it might catch on. Can you hear me now?