Fines for using your phone while driving to be doubled in UK
If you’re caught using your phone while driving in the UK you can be fined as much as £200 and be given six points (enough to ban a driver).
According to The Sun, it was initially expected that the UK Government would only be increasing the punishment by one point and an extra £50.
But last night Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling announced that the use of mobile phones while driving should be considered as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving, and reminded the public that everyone has a part to play in ensuring that family and friends don’t use their phones while driving.
Also read: Should walking and texting be banned?
South Africa has one of the highest road accident rates in the world and according to BusinessTech, around 25% of those accidents are caused by cellphone use while driving.
The International Transport Forum’s 2013 Road Safety Annual Report noted that South Africa experiences 32 accidents per 100, 000 people per year and that the cost of this tragedy is enormous.
It’s not exactly clear as to what the punishments are for phone use while driving in South Africa, although legislation does state that it is prohibited:
- No person shall drive a vehicle on a public road
- while holding a cellular or mobile telephone or any other communication device in one or both hands or with any other part of the body;
- while using or operating a cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device unless such cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device is affixed to the vehicle or is part of the fixture in the vehicle and remains so affixed while being used or operated, or is specially adapted or designed to be affixed to the person of the driver as headgear, and is so used, to enable such driver to use or operate such telephone or communication device without holding it in the manner contemplated in paragraph (a), and remains so affixed while being used or operated.
- Deleted
- For the purposes of this regulation
- the word “headgear” includes for the purposes of this regulation a device which is specially designed or adapted to allow the driver to use a cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device in such a manner that he or she does not hold it in one or both hands or with any other part of the body, and which is connected to the cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device concerned, directly or indirectly, while being fitted to or attached to one or both ears of the driver; and
- the phrases “cellular or mobile telephone or any other communication device” and “cellular or mobile telephone or other communication device”, excludes land mobile radio transmission and reception equipment operating in the frequency band 2 megahertz to 500 megahertz that is affixed to the vehicle or is part of the fixture in the vehicle.