Government has pledged to get tough on motorists who send text messages while driving. Department for Transport is consulting on making careless driving a fixed penalty notice offence and proposes a higher penalty for using mobile phones when in charge of a vehicle.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin told a conference in London this morning: “The idea that you can send a text while driving is unbelievable.” He went on to suggest that texting while driving is more dangerous than taking a phone call when behind the wheel.

“A moment of stupidity can cut out someone’s life and devastate a family,” he said. “My message to drivers who text is if you continue to show complete disregard for the safety of other road users we will catch you and we will punish you.”

Mr McLoughlin was addressing the ‘Best Foot Forward’ seminar in Westminster hosted by PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. The event was held to mark the launch of a new report to promote pedestrian safety, which says there “seems to have been little progress in adult pedestrian casualty reduction over the past three years”.

Where you live has a large bearing on the chance of being a pedestrian casualty, according to the report. People living in the London borough of Newham are most likely to be a pedestrian casualty, with those from Daventry in Northamptonshire the least likely. Children represent over half of all pedestrian casualties in Blackburn, Burnley and Oldham but less than a sixth of those in Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Camden.

RAC Foundation director Professor Stephen Glaister said in response to the Transport Secretary’s proposed crackdown on texting motorists: “We see mobile phone use while driving on the roads every day and recognise it is a very dangerous occupation. But the problem is the law is not enforced and I don’t understand why.”

(Photo: Oregon Department of Transport)

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