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[Article] Drivers face jail for using mobiles on road

17-11-2003 11:56pm

#1

Victor

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http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/1972355?view=Eircomnet

Drivers face jail for using mobiles on road
From:The Irish Independent
Monday, 17th November, 2003
Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent

DRIVERS are to be jailed for three months if they're caught for a third time using a hand-held mobile phone, it was confirmed yesterday.

The draconian "three strikes and you're out" measure is being included in radical new legislation being introduced to ban outright any use of hand-held mobile phones by drivers.

The increasingly widespread use of mobile phones by car and truck drivers is already linked by gardai to a number of fatal crashes on Irish roads prompting growing concerns among road safety officials.

Under the measures being introduced in the New Year by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan drivers caught using a hand-held mobile phone will be fined €190 and get one penalty point. If they fight this in court they risk three penalty points.

If they're caught a second time motorists will be fined €434 and get three penalty points.

But in a major development if they're caught a third time they face a three months' jail term as well as more penalty points and disqualification, a spokesperson for the minister confirmed yesterday.

"There is increasing evidence that mobile phone use in cars and trucks is a major contributory factor in an increasing number of accidents", the spokesperson said.

The minister is now proceeding to ban the use of mobile phones by drivers in all vehicles under new legislation currently being finalised, he added.

A similar law banning motorists using mobile phones will come into effect in the UK from December 1 and the minister wants to have the measures brought in here as quickly as possible.

There have been a series of legal problems over plans, announced more than two years ago by the then Road Safety Minister Bobby Molloy, to ban the use of mobile phones when it was revealed that emergency services were also affected. But numerous recent studies have linked the use of mobile phones with fatal crashes.

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