Drivers face two years in jail for using their mobile phones

 

By JAMES SLACK - More by this author » Last updated at 19:18pm on 6th September 2007 Comments (5)

Victim: Trinity Taylor died when a lorry driver hit her car on the M3 as he was using his phone. He was jailed for four years

 

 

 

 

Motorists who drive carelessly while using a hand-held mobile phone or fiddling with their sat-nav will be jailed for up to two years in a dramatic toughening of sentencing rules.

Prosecutors have said the offence would be upgraded from careless to dangerous driving.

Other bad habits which will carry the charge would include using an MP3 player, or any other electronic device.

Charges will be brought wherever prosecutors say using the equipment posed a danger, such as forcing a car to swerve or a distracted motorist jumping a red light.

Those who kill while using a mobile will face 14 years behind bars, under a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

Ken Macdonald QC, director of public prosecutions, said: "There is widespread public concern about the use of mobile phones and other hand-held electronic equipment while driving.

"We accept that in cases where there is clear evidence that danger has been caused by their use - such as texting while driving - then our policy should spell out that the starting point for charging will be dangerous driving."

Motoring groups said the move was a "dramatic" escalation in the seriousness of the offence.

The current offence of careless driving, used to punish people who drive unsafely by using a mobile or popular equipment such as a satellite-navigation system, carries only a £2,500 fine or community order.

More commonly, drivers are punished for the simple offence of using a mobile while driving - which, since February, carries a fine of £60 and three penalty points.

The changes follow a Crown Prosecution Service review of the penalties for "bad driving", which also suggests a charge of manslaughter could be brought in some cases against drivers who kill.

Supporters say that despite fines and penalty points for using a mobile, many drivers still flout the law, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Trinity Taylor, 23, from Aldershot, Hampshire, died in 2005 after lorry driver John Payne ran into her car on the M3 in Basingstoke while using his mobile. Payne, 31, of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for four years.

But Edmund King, of the RAC Foundation, said existing punishments should be properly enforced.

He said: "The message to motorists is clearly that, if you are using a hand-held mobile or sat-nav, beware because the law is going to clamp down on you."

But he added: "If it really is interpreted that using a handheld mobile phone is dangerous driving, that is a dramatic change to what is currently happening.

"Despite the threat of three penalty points, which could be a threat to a person's livelihood, we all see thousands of motorists driving dangerously using mobile phones.

"It is not just about sentencing, it is about enforcement. We ought to look at what is already in law first."

Paul Smith, of Safe Speed, said careless driving - the current charge - is not an offence that the vast majority of drivers commit deliberately.

Shifting it to a new category of dangerous driving will therefore have no deterrent effect, he claimed.

He added: "If there is to be no deterrent effect, I cannot see what they are trying to achieve."

Mr Smith said extreme care should be taken when deciding to prosecute a driver.

"You cannot say because someone had a mobile phone they were driving dangerously.

"There must be evidence they were actually posing a danger to other people."

Under the changes, motorists who cause death on the roads face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Current guidelines say manslaughter is "very rarely appropriate" in road death cases.

But the CPS said, in future, the very worst cases currently prosecuted as death by dangerous driving should instead be prosecuted as manslaughter, which carries a maximum life sentence.

But the review makes it clear that, despite a public clamour for tougher action, there will still be very few cases which pass the test for the new tougher regime.

It says: "We are not persuaded the CPS should alter its approach so as to prosecute routinely for gross negligence manslaughter in circumstances where we would currently prosecute for causing death by dangerous driving.

"In the majority of cases, where a death occurs as a result of dangerous driving, the offence of causing death by dangerous driving will still be the most appropriate charge to bring."

The CPS has been extremely wary of bringing manslaughter charges because, under current rules, if a motorist is acquitted by a jury they will walk free, and manslaughter is a demanding case to prove.

But, under reforms being introduced on September 24 this year, the CPS will be able to bring alternative charges against the same motorist.

Someone who has killed on the roads could be charged with manslaughter as well as causing death by dangerous driving, leaving a jury open to return the lower charge if they find manslaughter has not been proved.

A CPS consultation paper, published last year, said other aspects of bad driving may also need to be treated as dangerous driving and carry a jail term, including tailgating, tuning a car radio, "undertaking", running a red light and applying make-up or lighting a cigarette on the move.

Full guidance due later this year will contain more details of which activities are to be prosecuted more harshly.

The CPS said it will also will introduce a better service for bereaved families, with prosecutors meeting relatives at an early stage to explain the charging decision and the court process.

Using a hands-free device is just as bad as having an handset jammed to your ear.

exactly. you're attention is still divided between the road and the conversation you're having. its bad enough trying to have a conversation with a passenger in the car, I always end up missing what they're saying but they can at least see i'm concentrating on driving

A conversation in the car can be halted quickly if there is a hazard ahead, and because the person is in the same car, they can see the hazard as well, so they know why you ain't talking.

 

Someone on the end of a phone can't see the hazard.

 

They will talk about making driving when on a phone a prison offence, but there isn't enough coppers out there to check.

A conversation in the car can be halted quickly if there is a hazard ahead, and because the person is in the same car, they can see the hazard as well, so they know why you ain't talking.

 

Someone on the end of a phone can't see the hazard.

 

They will talk about making driving when on a phone a prison offence, but there isn't enough coppers out there to check.

 

Maybe they'll use cameras.;)

They won't.

They won't.

 

How do you know?? :rolleyes: