•
•
“I’m a good driver/
it won’t happen to me”
“I won’t get caught”
“I can get away with it”
“Haven’t the police got
anything better to do?”
rather than point out possible ones for them, so that the driver has to
think through that scenario and actively imagine themselves in it.
Encourage them not to make calls to family members that they know
are driving, to keep them safe too.
Encourage them to think of all other road-users as someone’s family,
who are just as keen to get home safely as they are.
• Unfortunately, research consistently tells us that most drivers believe
they are better than average, and hence may support laws against
mobile phone use, and even appreciate some education campaigns -
all the time thinking that they are useful for other drivers and not
themselves. This can be challenged by a reminder that none of the
people who are killed or injured in crashes thought it would be them
either.
• It is also worth pointing out that if indeed we are better than average,
then we need to always concentrate on the road around us - because
we think we are surrounded by people who are not as capable as us!
We would not want to encourage drivers to believe that they are
indeed better than average, but we can point out that we cannot
protect ourselves from the mistakes of other drivers if we are looking
at our phones.
•
•
With less police officers on UK roads, individuals may well believe they
can commit an offence without experiencing the legal repercussions
associated with it. Those people should be reminded that the
consequences of mobile phone use are not just fines and points...
Online reporting capabilities for drivers, such as Operation Snap, are
useful here. Individuals who believe that they can commit offences
without being caught should be reminded of the potential for any road
user to submit evidence of offending behaviour to the police. Similarly,
it’s worth pointing out that the police use other vehicles (not just police
cars) to look for offending drivers.
•
Unfortunately, this is quite a popular challenge. Try asking challengers
if they know the numbers of people who were killed in violent
crimes in the last year, and the numbers killed on the roads in their
area. Numbers of murders are eclipsed by road deaths, and this can be
used to demonstrate why roads policing is necessary and legitimate.
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