Phone charge 'first' for driver

Offenders face a £30 fine

A woman is thought to be the first person in Britain charged under the new law against using a hand-held mobile phone while driving.

She was driving in Tayside, Scotland, in the early hours of Monday when she was stopped by police.

The 35-year-old woman did not receive an on-the-spot fine as she was also charged with drink-driving and both alleged offences will be dealt with at a later date.

Some police forces in Scotland had warned that they would implement the new legislation immediately.

But others have said they would adopt a more gradual approach to the ban, which came into effect on Monday.

Lothian and Borders police say they will stop drivers and warn them for an initial period.

In England and Wales, many forces will give motorists a verbal warning until February 2004 if they are caught using a hand-held phone.

The minimum fine for breaking the law is £30.

WHAT ARE THE NEW RULES? Apply from 1 December New offence of "using a hand-held phone while driving" £30 fixed penalty fine Rising to up to £1,000 if the matter goes to court Rising to up to £2,500 for drivers of vans, buses, coaches and lorries The highway dialling code

Hands-free kits are allowed but many road safety experts say they do not reduce the risks of having an accident.

Despite the changes a survey of drivers found 94% were unaware of the changes - even though a quarter admitted phoning or texting while behind the wheel.

Police forces can issue on-the-spot fines, but the Association of Chief Police Officers has recommended that officers in England and Wales give drivers a period of grace to get used to the new laws.

But police will still be able to issue instant fines if they feel a driver's use of a mobile phone poses a serious risk, or if their use contributes to a collision.

And road safety minister David Jamieson said that while the new ban applies only to hand-held mobile phones "police can use other powers to prosecute a driver if they are distracted by a call on a hands-free phone".

Exploitation fears

Road safety charity Brake fears some phone companies will exploit the ban to promote their hands-free models.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said: "At least 20 people have died on Britain's roads in crashes where mobile phones have been implicated."

The AA Motoring Trust said drivers using mobiles were four times more likely to have an accident even if they were employing hands-free devices.

The roads minister said the general advice to drivers remained that they should turn their phones off while driving, and pull over if they needed to make or receive a call.

A survey of 1,000 motorists by Tesco suggested more than nine out of 10 drivers were unaware of the changes.

A separate study by Sainsbury's said that almost nine million people used a hand-held mobile phone while driving during the last year.

Roadside study

Of those 709,000 said that using their phone has nearly caused them to have an accident.

But a roadside straw poll by Roger Harrabin, correspondent for BBC Radio 4's Today programme, suggested mobile phone use by drivers had slightly declined compared to last year.

In his rather unscientific study - conducted by standing at a busy junction in north London for an hour - he spotted only two drivers using hand-held mobile phones compared to eight in an hour last year.

However, he did see rather a lot of drivers evidently using hands-free kits and holding earnest conversations with their dashboards - without paying full attention to the road.