A new perspective on Drinking and Driving...

Recently, I put together some commercials for the Sussex Police and the Hampshire Road Safety Team. I was concentrating on the changes in the law that make driving with a mobile phone a serious traffic offence.

Now, if you get caught using your mobile while driving, you'll get an automatic £60 fine and three points on your licence. They justify this by proving that using your mobile while driving makes you four times more likely to have an accident.

Additional statistics prove that using a mobile while driving makes you twice as likely to have an accident than if you drove drunk - and your reaction times while talking on a mobile are 30% slower than if you were over the drink drive limit.

Basically, you're more likely to get involved in a serious accident if you're driving while phoning than if you're driving while drunk. Yet the penalty is considerably more lenient.

If you drink and drive, you'll face an automatic year's ban - yet you're less likely to cause an accident than if you were on your mobile. That doesn't seem sensible.

Put it this way. I'd never consider drinking and driving on British roads - yet I'm ashamed to admit I occasionally use my mobile. I'm not alone - so do an apparent 25% of British drivers. Until the penalty for driving-while-phoning matches the penalty for driving-while-drunk, a considerable number of people will continue to drive while they're on the phone - and present more of a risk than drink drivers would.