Mersyside motorists fined £1.2m last year for driving while using mobile phones

Nov 11 2009 by Marc Waddington, Birkenhead News

MOTORISTS coughed up more than £1.2m in fines in the past year for using their mobile phones while driving in Merseyside.

Police ticketed more than 20,000 drivers for using handheld mobiles while in charge of their vehicles between April 2008 and September 2009.

Even a driving instructor teaching a learner was among those slapped with a £60 penalty and three points on their licence.

Merseyside police warned that unless they enforced the law, “the number of killed or seriously injured on the road could potentially increase”.

But because the cause of accidents while driving is not recorded, there is no data available for how many people may have perished on UK roads because of mobile use.

Police authority members have said the number of offenders caught represented “the tip of the iceberg” and suggested the true number of drivers putting lives at risk was much higher.

The problem is so great, the force’s central ticket office is “operating at maximum capacity due to the high level of enforcement”.

Figures show that between April last year and March this year, 14,386 people were caught using a handheld while driving – around one in every 100 people in Merseyside.

Another 56 people were rapped for causing the driver to use a phone.

Despite police efforts to combat the problem, 6,323 drivers were caught in the five months between April and August this year, suggesting the overall tally for 2009/10 will be similar.

In comparison, Leicestershire police have only caught 1,576 drivers since April this year.

This week police – who have a target of issuing 70,400 fixed-penalty and summons notices a year – said they were determined to beat the scourge.

Chief Inspector Chris Markey, of Merseyside police, said: “Using a mobile phone while driving makes you four times more likely to crash so I am sure the public will understand why we are so determined to stop people from doing so.”