Posted on 09/06/2007 3:59:30 PM PDT by Stoat
Motorists who use a hand-held mobile phone or fiddle with a satellite-navigation system while driving could be jailed for up to two years.
Prosecutors have said they could be charged with dangerous driving in a dramatically tougher approach to such offences.
Those caught fiddling with an MP3 music player or texting on a mobile at the wheel could also face the charge.
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Prosecutions will be brought whenever it is judged that using the equipment posed a danger, such as forcing a car to swerve or causing a distracted motorist to jump a red light.
Those who kill while using a mobile phone will face 14 years behind bars under the charge of causing death by dangerous driving.
Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald 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."
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
Motoring groups said the move was a "dramatic" heightening of the seriousness of the offence.
The current offence of careless driving, which applies to those who drive unsafely by using a mobile or 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 satnav, beware because the law is going to clamp down on you."
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 alreadly in law first."
Paul Smith, of campaign group Safe Speed, said careless driving - the current charge - is not an offence that most drivers commit deliberately.
Shifting it to a new category of dangerous driving will therefore have no deterrent effect, he claimed.
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, under reforms being introduced on September 24 this year, a driver 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.
Full guidance due later this year will contain more details of which offences are to be prosecuted more harshly.
I went to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage today. Right at the gate there’s a sign that says no cell phone use while driving. Just inside the gate there’s another sign that says “43 drivers have lost their base driving privileges this year due to cell phone use.” Just last week it was 41 drivers. Navy bases in Hampton Roads banned them last year too.
Totalitarian trends in the UK alert.
You can achieve the same thing with $1000.00 dollar fines. Putting someone behind bars for two years destroys their life, destroys thier family’s life, costs society a bundle and creates a problem when you let them go.
I don’t want people fiddling with their phones either, but extended stays in prison? I don’t think so.
People that use cell phones when driving are every bit as dangerous as drunk drivers and should be treated the same way — BEFORE they kill someone.
While I sympathize with such sentiments...
...Why don’t they just take the motorist and shoot them after dunking them in boiling oil? I mean, gosh, if we’re gonna get harsh here, why not just draw and quarter them? If it’s good enough for Bravehart, it’s good enough for the careless motorist!
(/sarcasm)
Here in the USA, the average murderer serves 14 years. I scarcely think that 2 years for using a cell phone constitutes 1/7 of a murder.
I tell ya, I hate to admit it... 
but every time I see someone driving along with their hand up to their ear while almost running into me, I find this more and more agreeable!
UK The cameras that will catch drivers who stay too long in a parking space
Great Britain Satellites on speeders (Motorcycles' engine to be cut off via satellite - cars next)
IPod Ping
I agree. I don't have any stats on the subject but driver inattention causes many accidents, fatal or otherwise, and allowing them to operate a phone while navigating through traffic is INSANE.
I wish it was legal to do a "Bump-n-Run" on the idiot ahead of you yaking on the cell phone.
The moron this afternoon actually had two lanes of traffic tied up....phone glued to his head.
I guess talking on a cell phone while driving is now two-fifths as bad as molesting children.
The maximum jail time for drunk driving in the UK is six months. And they want two years for people who talk on their cell phones?
Who knows where?
Maybe mandating that all britains STAY IN THEIR ROOMS and away from all potentially dangerous things (guns, including AIR guns and TOY guns, and knives, swords, scissors, etc.).
It's really quite sad when the NANNY/POLICE state YOU empowered TELLS YOU that SAFETY (most of it PERCEIVED) is more important and valuable than FREEDOM.
Makes me glad to be an AMERICAN.
Sounds like the military is taking safe driving very seriously. I seem to recall hearing that in the first Gulf War, there were more U.S. troop deaths and injuries as a result of auto accidents at the foreign bases than from battle....does that sound like something you've heard? It was an astonishing number.
Any motorcyclist with a year or more experience will tell you the second biggest threat they face on the road today is an inattentive driver using a cellphone.
That said, laws such as these do nothing more than incrementally chip away at a person’s freedoms in the government’s never-ending quest to make everyone a criminal.
And if the mother is hysterical and will never be able to get closure, then the death penalty is the only valid option!
/sarcasm
From the article: "The current offence of careless driving, which applies to those who drive unsafely by using a mobile or equipment such as a satellite-navigation system, carries only a £2,500 fine or community order."
At the time of this posting, here is the currency conversion into US dollars:
Live rates at 2007.09.06 23:49:16 UTC
2,500.00 GBP
=
5,059.21 USD
United Kingdom Pounds
United States Dollars
1 GBP = 2.02369 USD
1 USD = 0.494148 GBP
It seems that the current penalties are over five times what you suggest, yet prosecutors and many in the public feel that it isn't enough and that drivers are not taking the penalties seriously as they are..
I agree.
Here in NE IL, Route 41...I drive this every day to and from work. Two lanes north and south, usually packed. People insist on going 35 in a 55 zone...talking on their phone, reading the paper and doing their makeup at the same time.
Then they’re also going 90 and yakking away. We were slowing to stop at a red light and I’m in the right lane. The car next to me is almost stopped and then...WHAM...she gets rear ended at 20+mph by an idiot on his cell phone. She gets shoved into the car in front and the idiot winds up with her car’s rear end up on his hood.
Driving while cell phoning IS worse than drunk driving if you are also stupid!
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