A FORMER police traffic expert has branded plans to prosecute all motorists caught using mobile phones for dangerous driving as unworkable.
But with more drivers than ever being caught, Director of Public Prosecutions Ken McDonald says they should all automatically be charged with dangerous driving, which carries a maximum two year jail sentence.
Drivers caught in the Thames Valley Police area can now currently avoid even the standard £60 fine and three penalty points, by attending a road safety workshop which demonstrates the consequences.
The 'Call Divert' workshop is the first of its kind in the country.
Coordinator Malcolm Collis, a retired Thames Valley traffic officer with 30 years' police experience, said the prosecutions would ‘clog up’ the legal system.
And that, despite the changes to the law in February this year, when penalty points were added to the punishment, more than 3,100 drivers in the Thames Valley have been caught on the phone in the last six months.
Half of them have attended, or will attend, the Call Divert workshop, 460 people have turned it down and paid up, and the remainder are in the preliminary stages of being offered a place.