Letter: Drivers on the phone
I totally agree with your correspondent about the lack of enforcement on the use of phones while driving.
We seem to have a whole raft of legislation which seems quite pointless when the deterrent effect of a police presence is now almost non-existent. I wonder how the new law on smoking in a vehicle containing children will be enforced? Is it expected that a six-month-old will contact ChildLine, or maybe in later life when diagnosed with an illness attributed to passive smoking, he/she will be able to sue their long deceased parents?
But back to the use of a mobile. Only the other day, at a school which is always congested with parents' cars, I noted a mum dropping off her offspring and then driving off through cars, school buses and walking pupils, busy texting on her phone.
Travel down the motorway and, from a high vantage point, see how many drivers you see with their phone in their hand, frequently glancing down. In any driving situation you need to be fully alert to what is in front, behind and at the side – and the whole scenario can change in a split second.
But the one thing which leaves me aghast is so-called professional drivers, namely lorry drivers. Last week I saw one with a cup of coffee in one hand and a mobile in the other. I have even seen one with his feet on the dashboard, the added benefit of cruise control no doubt. So is our modern economic growth left in the hands of these morons who have little regard for other people's lives?
When the law was introduced, it also became illegal for an employer to cause an employee to use a mobile while driving. Has that ever been enforced, I wonder?
Interestingly as mobiles work on a cell system, it should be possible to locate a handset if it is moving from cell to cell. So then surely there could be an onus put on every user to prove that they were not driving. At least it would be a good way of making easy money for our hard-pressed national coffers.
I know that sounds like Big Brother and 1984, but if there is no enforcement through lack of police personnel and no general will to obey the law, what should we expect?
Chris Brown, Westbury
