Driving using mobile phone (938A/22)

2 August 2022 | Fixed Penalty Notices, Incident and Crime Statistics

Request

Response

For both of the above questions, our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).

 

Pre – 25^th March 2022 to drive your car whilst using a mobile phone was prosecuted by the following legislation.

 

Driving whilst using a hand-held device

Or

Not in proper control of motor vehicle

 

The level of evidence determined which offence was used.

 

The use of a sat nav or other device would be “not in proper control of vehicle”.

 

Therefore, in order to retrieve the information, you desire, every fixed penalty issued would need to be assessed in the case of “not in proper control of vehicle” to determine if it was the use of a phone at fault. This would exceed the fees for the purpose of the freedom of information act.

 

However, this law was changed in March 2022, and as of 25^th of March 2022 new fixed penalty code was produced to cover the following:

 

The new law will amend the 1986 Regulations and will mean the offence is triggered whenever a driver holds and uses a device, regardless of why they are holding it.

 

The SI’s explanatory notes state the offence “will cover any device which is capable of interactive communication even if that functionality is not enabled at the time.” (PDF) This would include a device being in flight mode.

 

In the text of the SI, the meaning of ‘using’ a phone will be expanded to cover the following: ·       illuminating the screen ·       checking the time ·       checking notifications ·       unlocking the device ·       making, receiving, or rejecting a telephone or internet-based call ·       sending, receiving or uploading oral or written content ·       sending, receiving or uploading a photo or video ·       utilising camera, video, or sound recording ·       drafting any text ·       accessing any stored data such as documents, books, audio files, photos, videos, films, playlists, notes or messages ·       accessing an app ·       accessing the internet

 

The new code is used for any of the above scenarios.

 

Our systems do not allow for us to search for the individual scenarios as detailed above, therefore every ticket under this code since 25^th March 2022 (when the new law came in), would need to be individually assessed to review if it specifically refers to the use of a mobile phone whilst driving. This would exceed the fees for the purposes of FOI.

 

107 tickets issued x 20 mins = 35 hours

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