MOBILES ON THE MOVE

by MONITOR
THE proposal of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service that a number of driving offences should be upgraded from ”careless driving” to ”dangerous driving” will also be read with interest outside the UK. The offences include tailgating, running a red light, tuning a car radio, and overtaking on the inside but it is the inclusion of another identified as ”using a hand–held mobile on the move” that will probably attract the grfeatest support. The most casual observation here in Majorca shows that one–handed steering while using a mobile phone (and sometimes no–hand driving while lighting a cigarette at the same time) is prevalent and often very dangerous especially when it involves the nonchalant execution of a U–turn or parallel parking. There is no reasn to suppose that drivers here are any worse in this respect than those in the UK so the Crown Prosecution Service is right to make it an offence that could carry a prison sentence in future. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, said: ”The test is a person standing on the pavement and watching: is it ”That's a bit silly”, or ”That's really dangerous”?” But in offering that basis of judgement Mr Macdonald may inadvertently have touched on the problem of detecting the mobile phone offender. In any one day one can see dozens on the motorway or in the city but how many can actually be caught in the act by the police even with the increased use of road cameras?