Jail threat for mobile phone users

Date: Monday, September 10, 2007

Flouting the mobile phone driving ban could cost more than points on your licence following the publication of a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) consultation document.

In the future, drivers could be prosecuted under dangerous driving laws, rather than the current careless driving legislation, which could see a maximum two-year imprisonment if found guilty, according to the director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald.

Macdonald wants to see not only an overhaul of the current phone driving laws, but a widespread change in culture in how drivers who cause death by dangerous driving are dealt with by the judiciary.

In the future Macdonald wants manslaughter laws to be the "starting point” that attract the toughest mandatory life sentence.

The consultation's finding's on 'bad driving', launched just months before the redrafted CPS policy on road traffic offences is published this autumn, has been heralded as the closest indication of how the CPS will amend the current laws.

Macdonald said the reason for the public consultation was to ensure that the CPS takes into account any changes in public attitudes.

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