{"id":8507,"date":"2019-04-02T12:46:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T12:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/?p=8507"},"modified":"2019-04-02T12:46:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T12:46:22","slug":"more-uk-drivers-admit-to-using-mobile-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/more-uk-drivers-admit-to-using-mobile-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"More UK drivers admit to using mobile phones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After the tougher mobile phone penalties of 2017 appeared to result in a reduction in the number of drivers admitting to using a handheld phone, numbers are again increasing, according to new figures revealed in the RAC Report on Motoring<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across all age groups, a quarter (25%) of\ndrivers \u2013 the equivalent of 10m people \u2013 admit to illegally making or receiving\ncalls while driving, compared to 24% in 2017. Drivers in the 25-34 and 35-44\nage groups admit to a range of dangerous activities involving a handheld phone,\nwith nearly half in the younger age group (47%) saying they make or receive\ncalls while driving \u2013 up 7% on 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not just phone calls that are the\nproblem \u2013 more than a third of drivers aged 25-34 (36%) send texts, social\nmedia posts or emails while driving, compared to just 16% of drivers in all age\ngroups. In the 35-44 age group, 29% of drivers admit to doing this, up 10% on\n2017 and back to the same level as in 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the introduction of tougher\npenalties for handheld phone use at the wheel was absolutely the right thing to\ndo, we fear any benefits have run their course with this data showing illegal\nuse is now rocketing among some groups of drivers,\u201d said RAC Road Safety Spokesperson\nPete Williams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFollowing the introduction of stronger\npenalties in 2017, we saw a promising shift with some drivers changing their\nbehaviour for the better and becoming compliant with the law \u2013 indeed recent\nobservational data<\/a> suggested this was the case. Sadly, that didn\u2019t signal\nthe start of a longer-term trend with drivers now seemingly returning to their\nold ways and putting themselves and millions of other road users at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among all drivers there are also significant increases in the percentage who say they use a handheld phone when they are in control of a vehicle, but not moving \u2013 such as when they are at traffic lights or sat in congestion. Four-in-10 (40%) admit to checking social media messages, texts or emails while stationary \u2013 up from 38% last year \u2013 while a third (33%) say they send and post such messages, up from 29% in 2017. More than a fifth (22%) record videos or take photos while stationary, up from 16% last year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the tougher mobile phone penalties of 2017 appeared to result in a reduction in the number of drivers admitting to using a handheld phone, numbers are again increasing, according to new figures revealed in the RAC Report on Motoring. Across all age groups, a quarter (25%) of drivers \u2013 the equivalent of 10m people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":8508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}