25% more drivers fined for using mobile at wheel

The number of London drivers fined for using a mobile phone behind the wheel has shot up by more than 25 per cent, official figures revealed today.

Ministry of Justice statistics show 22,640 were caught in 2006, compared with just over 18,000 the year before.

London drivers accounted for around one in eight of the 164,900 offences nationwide.

Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, warned recently that punishment for the offence may be stiffened again.

After the original £30 fine, introduced in 2003, proved to be an inadequate deterrent, the penalty was increased to £60 and three points on the driver's licence.

Today's figures cover a period before the harsher punishments were introduced. They show a 30 per cent rise nationwide in the number of offences.

Some of this increase is likely to be the result of more vigorous enforcement by police and the greater use of camera evidence.

The report shows the number of most other motoring offences fell in 2006 with the overall total of prosecutions and fines down three per cent to 12.7 million across England and Wales. However there was a rise in drink-driving offences with the number and proportion of positive or refused breathalyser checks up one per cent, despite fewer tests being conducted.

London had one of the worst problems in the country, with more than 231 out of every 100,000 people tested failing to give a clear reading.

The national total included five million parking tickets issued by local authorities in London. Of these, 927,000 were written off after being overturned on appeal, withdrawn because of a warden's error, or abandoned because the driver could not be traced.

Two million drivers were prosecuted or fined in 2006 after being caught by roadside cameras - more than 90 per cent for speeding and the remainder for jumping red lights.