Dylan Thorne: Cellphone users put us all at risk on the roads

A woman driver looks at her cellphone while in her car.

Everything we do involves some degree of risk.

Cycling to work, crossing the road, going for a run.

Mostly, these activities are completed without too much thought. Occasionally though, someone will be faced with a life-and-death situation while carrying out a routine task.

It's a game of chance but the odds of something going disastrously wrong skyrocket when people take risks that put themselves and others in danger - here I'm talking about drivers who continue to flout the cellphone ban.

As reported this week, 628 people were fined a total of $49,120 for using their phone while driving last year. This was nearly double the 367 drivers caught in 2014 and ticketed $29,360.

Drivers caught received a $150 fine.

In the space of 15 minutes this week, the Bay of Plenty Times spotted seven drivers using their cellphones at a city intersection.

Police say those caught offered a range of excuses.

One of the more alarming reasons put forward by a motorist was that they were playing the mobile gaming craze Pokemon Go while driving.

The very thought of sharing the road with someone who sees nothing wrong with playing a game while operating dangerous machinery is terrifying.

From personal experience, it's not uncommon to see people chatting away while holding a phone to their ear, or even more alarmingly, staring at the phone presumably compiling or reading a text.

Automobile Association Bay of Plenty chairman Terry Molloy this week called for tougher penalties for offenders.

In his view, anybody caught texting and driving should lose their licence.

It's a big call but consider this: sending or reading a text is estimated to take a person's eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds. At 90km/h, that is like driving the length of a rugby field blind-folded.

The NZ Transport Agency lists cellphones as its number one distraction, with drivers engaged in texting 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash than other drivers.

However, the Government has discounted the likelihood of stiffer penalties because research shows less than 0.5 per cent of fatalities and injury crashes listed cellphone use as a contributing factor.

Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss said police were targeting drivers who flouted the law and he supported that, but the issue needed to be assessed against the proportion of crashes attributed to the use of cellphones.

While an automatic loss of licence might be a step too far, I think the fine should be increased substantially to deter offenders.

That, coupled with more stings, could change the view of those who continue to ignore the law.