RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

November 27, 2003
VICTIMS’ FAMILIES URGE DRIVERS TO HANG UP PHONES

The families of two people killed in mobile phone road accidents today joined RoSPA in urging drivers not to try to get around the new law banning the use of hand-held phones while at the wheel.

Kevin Clinton, RoSPA Head of Road Safety, said many motorists seemed more interested in trying to find ways to continue using a phone, rather than accepting that any form of phone conversation while driving made people four times more likely to crash.

“If you have a mobile phone, whether it is hand-held or hands-free, you should switch if off when you get into your vehicle and not turn it on until you are parked in a safe place,” he said. “The law coming in on Monday may only cover hand-held phones, but that does not mean hands-free kits are safe to use when driving.”

He feared more fatal crashes if the mobile phone industry continued to promote the use of hands-free kits as safe for motorists, and if bosses did not make it a disciplinary offence for their employees to use a mobile phone at the wheel.

“Employers could play a major part in making this law even more effective if they stopped their workers using mobiles when driving on company business,” he said. “Research clearly shows that using a hands-free phone while driving is just as dangerous as using a hand-held phone – there is little point in having both hands connected to the steering wheel, if the brain is not connected to the hands.”

His views were backed by Robert and Val Hammond whose daughter Carol Pattinson, aged 32, was killed by a driver hanging up his mobile phone, and Lynda Hudd, whose daughter Rebekka, aged 11, died when she was hit by a driver on a mobile phone.

Mrs Hammond of Cresswell, Staffordshire, said: “The only safe thing to do is to not have your mobile phone switched on when you are driving. I would hate to see other families having to suffer needlessly in the way we have done, just because a driver puts a phone call before someone’s life.”

Mrs Hudd of Pucklechurch, near Bristol, said: “My daughter would be alive today if this law had been introduced earlier. Any phone call while driving is dangerous. It is the height of selfishness to risk people’s lives for the sake of a call.”

RoSPA has led the campaign to outlaw the use of mobiles at the wheel and knows of more than 20 deaths on Britain’s roads involving mobile phones - hands-free phones were being used in at least two of those tragedies. It is believed thousands of road accidents have been caused by people talking on the phone.