Call for phone drivers crackdown

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/6128716.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Penalties for using a mobile phone while driving need to be made more severe, a top police officer has said.

A Bill going through parliament would increase the fine for the offence from £30 to £60, plus points on a licence.

Med Hughes, Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) roads spokesman, said it was time to rethink the penalties.

The South Yorkshire Police chief constable told the BBC that the use of endorsements on driving licences "really needed to be thought through".

Mobile 'madness'

He said: "Something like 17,000 people have been prosecuted for mobile phone offences, and it's time to have reconsideration of the penalties.

"We have the opportunities to look at endorsements for the offence, and I think that's something that really needs to be thought through."

Kristy Anderson, whose sister Trinity was killed in an accident caused by a lorry driver who was using his mobile phone, said it was "madness" to use a mobile while driving.

"I see the other school mums driving round the school, they've got children in the back of the car and they're talking on their phone," she told the BBC.

"I think it's just madness, so I just signal and I hope that the people I know - or the people that know of our family - those people don't do it anymore".