Motorists face new challenge

Published on Friday 23 February 2007 01:23

FROM next Tuesday, the fine for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving will double to £60. In addition, those convicted of this offence will find themselves with three extra penalty points on their driving licence. However, this is not the most significant change.

As of Tuesday, some police forces on some occasions will no longer stop motorists they believe are using hand-held phones illegally, and charge them. Instead, they will send fixed-penalty charges through the post in a similar manner to that which results from being caught by a speed camera. If you object and opt to go to court, you could then face a fine of 1,000. And if you refuse to say who was driving the car, you could face the more serious charge of not co-operating with police.

No Scotsman reader will object to the law being enforced - and there are very sensible reasons why a motorist should not be distracted from driving by holding a conversation on the phone. There are also good grounds for not tying up police time in matters such as this.

However, the police need to take into account the fact that the ordinary motorist - while being both law-abiding and concerned with the environment - is increasingly of the view that he or she is being persecuted for daring to own a car.

Recent opinion polls indicate that 93 per cent of motorists feel, to some degree or other, that the government does not treat them fairly. Nearly 40 per cent think the government uses the motorist merely "as a cash point".

This growing frustration is reflected in anger over the spread of speed cameras, which are very necessary but which many motorists suspect are as much to do with maximising local-authority revenues as road safety - especially given the fact that speed cameras are not necessarily infallible in all circumstances. Such suspicions may be exaggerated, but they are real nevertheless, and the police need to be sensitive to them.

The same goes for the new fixed penalties for using a hand-held mobile phone. Some motorists will be aggrieved that they can be fined with the minimum of obvious proof or due process. Others will be worried that they are in further danger of losing their licence altogether. The number of drivers with three points on their licence - nearly a million people - has already increased by 7 per cent in the past two years, mostly because of speeding offences.

The law is the law, and if you need to make an urgent call you can almost always pull over to the side of the road. However, the police also have a duty to use their new powers sensitively and with an eye to keeping the public on their side.