To think phone drivers should receive an immediate 3 month ban

So you would never check your phone in the car?

The facile Daily Mail-esque lock them up and throw away the key, crush the car etc etc arguments are ridiculous and impractical as others have pointed out. Apologies to the won’t someone please think of the children crowd.

I don’t believe this approach will be effective.
There are around 40 million cars licenced to drive on U.K. roads. With the best will in the world, unlimited funding for the police they can’t possibly monitor everyone. Pretty much everyone driving will have a mobile phone.

I think “hands free” i.e. a cradle suction cupped to the windscreen should also be illegal. Most newer cars don’t require these and within a few years there will be very few cars that don’t have in built sat nav and Apple CarPlay/android auto.

My phone switches to driving mode when it senses movement (be that car or train) you have to override this to use the phone. I don’t see why this system couldn’t be built into cars. Again in modern cars you get an infuriating beeping sound if you don’t have your seatbelt on, I think something like this for mobile phone use, could something similar be used for cars? There would need to be an override for passenger use but the seatbelts know who is in the car so it wouldn’t be available when only one person was in the car.

certainly longer than three months - and a heavy fine

now what to do about the texting cyclists?

The people who have decided that a "bit of minor phone use is ok, and what about the people who speed and weave about they're the ones who cause all the accidents"... they won't be convinced otherwise

This is true, @JacquesHarlow, but then if some resist the small inconvenience of not using a phone when driving I'd suggest they're much less likely to accept the far bigger one of being banned

Which is where seizing the vehicle for the duration of the ban comes into it, and if that troubles its other users they can take that up with the person who caused it

Prob with being banned I know 3 people banned who still drive /drove

unless someone is watching them 24/7 how can they inforce it

they can’t take away a family car if others use it

a huge fine and points so if happens agaib they lose license

but then back to prob one

It's hard to legally describe and mitigation is there.

People use phones for navigation purposes (hands free and mounted) but if mounting falls off people may need to grab it. Particularly in winter months when the warming of the car inside tends to make the suction iffy. I've had it fall off and the cables get tangled around the gearstick. I do need to sort that out before I need to change gear or its dangerous.

@DragonFly98

People are:so odd the way they think "it's illegal do you just never do it". Like they can't assess risk for themselves or see the difference between immoral and illegal. The OP herself has pointed out the issue with car controls being on screens and more complicated to access. Yet then says that to use these are "legal" as if that makes the ok to use. Personally, I think the use of these screens as controls, having to search through numerous menus for example, are likely to be way more dangerous and distracting than pushing one button on a phone to switch an alarm off.

Texting while during, obviously dangerous and a big no. Watching films while driving, equally problematic. Pressing a button to stop a distracting alarm....While, if you are holding your phone to do this is technically illegal, I don't think it's particularly distracting, dangerous, or immoral to do so. No more so than lots of other things you do to control the car while driving. The law is there to make things clearer (just don't hold your phone) and to make enforcement easier. It doesn't mean that even just touching a phone while driving is highly dangerous, immoral and makes you a terrible person.

I totally agree.

For safety reasons of course but also because the roads would be lovely and quiet.

Can we also get rid of the ones smoking weed? Not a week goes by that I'm not behind a car with stinky weed smoke emanating from it. And I drive to work at 6am!

No. Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt once. Hence we have points system and training courses.

Welcome to social media.

You're in luck op because Weybridge had a new police thing :

The examples op gave were bad. But I disagree with the laws re engine off : stationary traffic, accident on m25 where you queued for 1/2 an hour, I'd turn engine off, then text Dh. But that's not allowed either.

Personally I'd give a 2yr or lifetime ban. 10% of drivers are on their phones, I walk and spot them all the bloody time.

No one ever needs to check a phone while driving. Wait and pull over. Even life or death isn't a reason to do it.

I'd like cars to be seized during the ban period
Bans are regularly flouted

Very much agree with this, @Mojo; as you suggest it's one thing to ban someone and quite another to stop them driving

I get massively pissed off when I drive past another driver who is looking at their phone. Or one that is looking at their phone during a 30-1min queue.
But it's stupid and pointless to shriek about people checking their phone in a massive, stagnant line of traffic or in a gridlock on a motorway.

who owns the car?

you've misunderstood - I didn't mean the phone - I meant the car

OP. I live in Surrey and agree with all your points.

We must clamp down and clamp hard on careless and dangerous driving. I'm sick of it and the entitled fuckery around car use and endless complaints over sitting in traffic that abound on our local socials. You are the traffic!

I do drive, but will walk and use train if it is for shorter journeys to ease pressure on roads and parking.

I'd raise £££ if I was in charge of traffic management! Junction blickers, red light jumpers and phone users. You're on my list.

The only way to get selfish twats to mend their ways is through harsh penalties.

I think it will come, I only to reduce driver numbers

That’s not the point is it? You could say the same about all the rapists, burglars, fraudsters we need to jail, not enough cells for them either. That’s the government’s problem to solve. The point is that people won’t stop with this selfish, entitled fuckery until a few of them go to jail for it and it deters others.

I see it all the time. When I used to be able to walk the school run it was awful. The number of times I didn’t know if I should cross or not because the driver wouldn’t have seen us. These drivers would be scrolling Facebook, watching TikTok videos. Just clueless as to what is going on.
Motorways and dual carriageway traffic seems to be the worst for it. All these bikes whizzing past.

people can’t put the blinking things down

appreciate I’m writing on mine, but I’m in living room with a cuppa

Police were doing spot checks and pulling people over near me yesterday. The number of people up in arms about on our local Facebook page was astounding. One guy complained he had been pulled over for driving with maps open on his phone on his lap and looking down to check it as he was driving. He literally couldn’t understand the danger. The number of comments from people saying it was a waste of police time and they should be out solving crimes amazed me. It’s clearly prolific.

Where are these prisons coming from? Are they the fantasy drinky prisons?

I do find it very bizarre how the law works though - Uber drivers for example can use their phone when it’s driving because it’s suction cupped to the window.

Phone ? You mean phones. One per exploitative mispelled platform ....

Motorways are the safest roads to drive on I believe. Surely the penalty should be harsher in built up areas where there are likely to be pedestrians and cyclists to injure?

Drink drive limit of ZERO would see people banned for using cough syrup.

Min 6 months ban plus min £1000 fine. Lose your licence if it’s on a motorway. Those are the ONLY sort of penalties that will make people think twice.

Drink drive limit should be ZERO and drink driving offences should always get a prison sentence.

We are far, far too soft on all of these offences. I see people using phones whilst driving nearly every day (outer London), it’s an absolute disgrace.