Shropshire Star comment: Imperative police reset text odds
In the battle against the motoring mobile phone callers and texters, enter the juggernaut – or at least the undercover lorry.
Some drivers on the M6 who have been breaking the law by using their mobile phones, despite the tightening up of penalties, are in for a shock.
They think they are getting away with it, but police have deployed a heavyweight new weapon. You get a great view from the cab of a lorry. It is a perfect vantage point from which to look down into cars and vans below, and now police have cottoned on to that.
They have been using an unmarked lorry as a spy vehicle. Hopes that they might have had a thin harvest on the rainy M6 were disappointed. They had no difficulty detecting a number of motorists using their mobile phones while driving.
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They alerted colleagues in a nearby unmarked police car, who pulled over the culprits. Sneaky? Maybe. But despite all the warnings, people are continuing to use their mobile phones at the wheel because catching offenders in the act is difficult.
No driver who is inclined to use a mobile phone is going to if they know a police vehicle is about. But if there is no police car in sight, they know they are highly likely to get away with it, except if some other motorist reports them. In reality, that seems to happen very rarely.
Tragically, there have been well publicised cases in which the use of a mobile phone at the wheel has only become apparent when somebody has lost their life. To make the roads safer police need to reset the odds. The belief one is being observed has been demonstrated to alter behaviour.
This initiative is going to be a useful tool on the motorways, with their high speeds and heavy traffic in which this lorry can hide in plain sight.
It is a tool for a specific set of circumstances – motorways, and perhaps dual carriageways.
On single carriageway roads, there are going to remain challenges in bringing offenders to book. First you have to catch them.
But this scheme indicates that police are taking things seriously and have imaginative solutions up their sleeves, which should make offenders at least think twice.
