{"id":145123,"date":"2018-06-22T23:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/two-thirds-of-drivers-unaware-of-mobile-penalties\/"},"modified":"2018-06-22T23:11:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T23:11:00","slug":"two-thirds-of-drivers-unaware-of-mobile-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/two-thirds-of-drivers-unaware-of-mobile-penalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-thirds of drivers &#8216;unaware of mobile penalties&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Woman driving while on a mobile phone\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/B695\/production\/_99014764_phone_driving_pa.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  PA                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Almost two-thirds of drivers are unaware of the punishment for using mobile phones at the wheel, more than 12 months after the introduction of tougher laws, a poll has found.<\/p>\n<p>The RAC found only 36% of the 2,000 UK motorists quizzed knew offenders face six penalty points and a \u00a3200 fine.<\/p>\n<p>Some 41% believed more visible law enforcement is needed, and 22% advocated stronger penalties.<\/p>\n<p>The punishment was doubled from three penalty points and \u00a3100 last year.<\/p>\n<p>This made it enough to ban those with less than two years&#039; experience.<\/p>\n<p>To get back behind the wheel, these offenders have to retake both the theory and practical parts of the driving test.<\/p>\n<p>The new rules apply in England, Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hundreds of new drivers banned for phone use<\/li>\n<li>New drivers found texting to lose licence<\/li>\n<li>What you can and can&#039;t do when you&#039;re driving<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When the new penalties were introduced, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said they would &quot;act as a strong deterrent&quot; to mobile phone users.<\/p>\n<p>Department for Transport figures showed 780 people were injured in accidents in 2016 when a driver was distracted or impaired by their phone - up 10% on the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>In the poll, 18% of drivers backed the blocking of mobile signals within cars.<\/p>\n<p>RAC road safety spokesman Pete Williams said the law around hand-held phone use by drivers &quot;could not be clearer&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Yet every year there are dozens of fatal crashes caused by motorists who have allowed themselves to be distracted by their phone,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There remains a hard core of drivers who continue to ignore the law and all the risks associated with hand-held phone use.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Figures obtained by BBC Radio 5 Live last year revealed that 290 new UK drivers were disqualified in the first six months since the change.<\/p>\n<p>In Northern Ireland, motorists caught using a hand-held phone while driving face a \u00a360 fine and three penalty points.<\/p>\n<p>A public consultation on a government proposal to increase this penalty closed last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright PA Almost two-thirds of drivers are unaware of the punishment for using mobile phones at the wheel, more than 12 months after the introduction of tougher laws, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}