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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the amendment. As the noble Baroness and the noble Earl have both said, there must come a time when it is safe to use a phone. With the engine switched off you cannot move, and whether you are in a lay-by or stuck in traffic, it does not make that much difference. If you get out of the car—which you are not allowed to do on a motorway, but people probably do occasionally if the traffic is not moving—that is illegal in one sense and legal in another. There has to be a solution. What worries me is that if it remains illegal to use a mobile phone when you are sitting in a car under any circumstances, the police will probably turn a blind eye most of the time, but there will be occasions when they do not turn a blind eye, which they have a habit of doing these days. They arrested a lady walking along a cycle track in Dundee under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. She was not doing anything, just walking down a cycle track. The police do funny things. There needs to be a way out of this, and the amendment looks to be a good start.