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Driving Offences: Mobile Phones

Answer

Driving while using a hand held mobile phone became a specific offence from 1 December 2003.Available information on prosecutions from 2003 to 2005 is provided in the table. 2006 data will be available next year.Offences are also dealt with by the offer of a fixed penalty. In 2003, there were 1,888 tickets paid, in 2004 there were 73,976 tickets paid and 126,768 tickets were paid in 2005.

Fixed penalty notices issued¹ and court proceedings² at the magistrates courts for the offence of use of hand held mobile phone while driving³ by police force area, England and Wales, 2003-05
Number of offences
	2003	2004	2005
Police force area	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings²	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings²	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings²
Avon and Somerset	0	0	1,902	19	2,502	47
Bedfordshire	10	1	579	5	944	16
Cambridgeshire	0	0	219	7	1,347	19
Cheshire	0	0	2,689	2	2,891	15
Cleveland	13	0	1,066	4	1,955	7
Cumbria	13	0	528	24	1,021	41
Derbyshire	13	0	978	17	1,501	52
Devon and Cornwall	345	0	796	19	1,482	27
Dorset	0	0	521	0	657	3
Durham	0	0	504	1	963	2
Essex	0	0	2,431	28	4,369	64
Gloucestershire	147	0	632	1	1,208	4
Greater Manchester	0	0	8,166	73	12,904	154
Hampshire	54	0	2,032	18	4,078	40
Hertfordshire	0	0	2,526	6	3,923	70
Humberside	0	0	381	4	1,202	25
Kent	15	0	1,707	0	4,829	0
Lancashire	34	0	1,719	17	3,079	48
Leicestershire	17	0	759	12	254	28
Lincolnshire	7	0	1,529	9	2,514	15
London, City of	45	0	137	7	1,647	14
Merseyside	0	0	1,836	22	5,684	27
Metropolitan Police	681	0	13,581	203	18,035	658
Norfolk	17	0	887	20	904	21
Northamptonshire	1	0	297	0	971	0
Northumbria	56	0	1,271	32	2,409	22
North Yorkshire	5	0	720	18	1,289	35
Nottinghamshire	0	0	653	8	1,637	26
South Yorkshire	28	0	1,978	12	3,978	25
Staffordshire	12	0	264	11	2,346	21
Suffolk	42	0	978	7	1,707	22
Surrey	164	0	2,213	9	3,575	91
Sussex	0	0	546	1	1,105	2
Thames Valley	25	0	3,716	24	7,111	126
Warwickshire	0	0	621	7	918	17
West Mercia	0	0	2,200	17	5,246	59
West Midlands	144	0	3,864	61	5,065	109
West Yorkshire	0	0	2,368	11	4,272	47
Wiltshire	0	0	700	21	1,226	29
Dyfed Powys	0	0	363	13	628	16
Gwent	0	0	517	0	938	4
North Wales	0	0	999	3	424	17
South Wales	0	0	1,603	16	2,030	25
England and Wales	1,888	1	73,976	789	126,768	2,090
¹ Covers tickets paid where there is no further action.
² Includes cases where a fixed penalty notice was originally issued but not paid and subsequently referred to court.
³ Offences under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, Regulations 110 (1), 110 (2) and 110 (3). Introduced 1 December 2003.
Notes:
1. 0 = nil.
2. It is known that for some police force areas, the reporting of court proceedings in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete.
3. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
Source:
Fixed Penalty Notices Issued Collection and Court Proceedings Database, both held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (Ministry of Justice, M and SDC416-07)

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

169321; 468 c1104-6W

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Mobile phones Road traffic offences

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk