Govt eyes $100 fine for driving and phoning

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The Government is considering imposing a $100 fine for using a hand-held cellphone while driving.

Transport Minister Stephen Joyce said yesterday he is not convinced $50 is a sufficiently harsh penalty to stop drivers texting and making or receiving calls while driving.

The issue was one of balance, Joyce said, and if the government implements a $100 on-the-spot fine it might balance the increase by reducing the amount of demerit points lost. The Government has been advised to slap drivers caught using cellphones with the loss of 25 demerit points, but Joyce thinks this might be too much.

"There is some discussion around the $50 not being enough and the 25 demerit points perhaps being too much, so I want to test that thoroughly," Joyce said.

If drivers accumulate 100 demerits within a two-year period their licence is suspended for three months. Speeding 11-20km/h over the limit costs 20 demerit points.

A 2004 survey found more than 65 percent of New Zealanders owned a mobile phone, with 57 percent admitting to using a mobile phone while driving "at least occasionally".

Joyce said a ban on hands-free cellphones and two-way radios was "highly unlikely", even though the government has been inundated with advice and research showing it is the conversation that distracts drivers, not the physical act of holding a phone. Studies show drivers using cellphones, regardless of whether they are hand-held or hands-free, are four times more likely to have an accident.

The process to outlaw the use of cellphones while driving was begun under the previous government. After receiving submissions from the public, the Ministry of Transport made recommendations in a report to Joyce on Friday but Joyce was not willing to reveal its contents until he had discussed the issue with cabinet. A bill will be drafted following final input from other ministers, and a ban could be in place before Christmas.

Joyce said it was important to strike a balance. He did not believe drivers would accept a ban on hands-free cellphones, which were an essential business tool for tradesmen and small businesses, who might be economically disadvantaged if they could not be contacted while travelling.

"I think there is a general acceptance that using the actual [hand-held] phone is more distracting," Joyce said.

"But I don't see as much community acceptance around the hands-free. At the end of the day, the road system actually belongs to New Zealanders."

Otago University Associate Professor of Psychology Liz Franz, who has been studying the effects of multi-tasking on brain performance for 20 years, says it is not holding the phone that is the problem, it is that the brain is multi-tasking.

She said it would be a missed opportunity to ban hand-held and not hands-free. People who need to use a cellphone for business or in an emergency can easily pull over. She said allowing hands-free is akin to a person in the front passenger seat holding a phone to the driver's ear so the driver can talk.

"That illustrates how ridiculous it is to think that [banning hand-held phones] is going to solve the problem."

Auckland University's Department of Psychology also called for a ban on hands-free mobile phones as they were just as dangerous as hand-helds.

The university's Tony Lambert and Charlene Hallet said in a written submission to the NZ Transport Agency that the distracting effect while using a mobile phone was primarily the conversation, not holding the phone.

"In studies of 'inattention blindness' participants may be looking directly at a clearly visible object, yet fail to see it because their attention is engaged by another task."

- © Fairfax NZ News