Whilst other offences , such as ‘ driving without due care and attention ’ or ‘ failure to maintain proper control of a vehicle ’ may be used by the police for occasions when driving is poor but the 2003 law is unhelpful , this can get complicated . Monitoring of ‘ the problem ’ of mobile phone use by drivers becomes more difficult as some ‘ use ’ might be hidden in the statistics relating to these other offences - but we cannot assume that all these offences involved a mobile phone .
Just as importantly , it is necessary for us to question what members of the public believe is meant by the term ‘ use ’. Most drivers won ’ t know the specifics of the law , and will have got their understanding of what they ‘ can ’ and ‘ can ’ t ’ do from shorter , more easily accessible forms of information , such as that provided in the media , and from talking to other road users .
The fact that the law only relates to handheld use may encourage drivers to consider ‘ use ’ to only mean physically demanding , active tasks , such as holding a phone to one ’ s ear or writing a text message , whereas other more passive ( but distracting ) actions such as glancing at a phone to see who is calling , or reading a text , may be less likely to be considered problematic . Similarly , in 2018 , 25 % of those questioned admitted to using a handheld mobile phone while driving , but a larger 39 % admitted to using a handheld mobile phone while stationary with the ignition on ¹ - which is also , technically , driving .
Those that do not consider themselves to be ‘ users ’ or ‘ drivers ’ for these reasons may well ignore road safety education aimed at reducing mobile phone use . They also won ’ t appear in self-report statistics .
“ I don ’ t USE my mobile phone while driving . I just check my texts and choose what music I want to listen to ”.
Deconstructing the law :
“ Drive ” - in 2003 , most cars didn ’ t have the assistive technologies we have today . Do drivers understand when they are actually ‘ driving ’?
“ Using ” - compare phone functionality from 2003 with what we can do know .
“ Hand held ” - do wearable devices count as held ? Why is hands-free use not illegal ?
“ Mobile telephone ” - many cars have full phone functionality built-in to the dashboard . What about tablets that are not sold as phones but allow video calling ?
One of the challenges you may face in relation to action targeted at discouraging hands-free mobile phone use is the suggestion that it is no different to talking to a passenger . However , research has shown that sharing the environment with a driver allows passengers to manipulate their conversation based upon the driving context 2 ( what we may call shared situational awareness ).
However , an individual on the other end of a phone is not aware of complex and evolving driving situations . They are therefore less likely to moderate their conversation based on the extent to which the driver needs to concentrate .
See our section on ‘ Challenging the Challenges ’ for more ideas for how to respond to drivers who aren ’ t convinced .
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¹ RAC ( 2019 ). RAC Report on Motoring 2018 . Available from : https :// www . rac . co . uk / pdfs / report-on-motoring / 2019
2
Drews , F . A ., Pasupathi , M . and Strayer , D . L ., 2008 . Passenger and cell phone conversations in simulated driving . Journal of Experimental Psychology : Applied , 14 ( 4 ), pp . 392-400 .