Mobile variation
From today people who drive their cars and talk on their mobiles at the same time - a doubled fine and three points on their licence. But how consistently will the Police enforce this across the country?
Research by the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú using freedom of information requests shows wide variation in how tough Police forces have been until now in issuing fixed penalty fines to drivers using their mobiles. The force in England with the harshest record on this - Greater Manchester - has issued nearly five times as many fines given its population than the most lenient, which is Sussex.
The four English forces with the highest rate of fines per population size so far are Greater Manchester, West Mercia, Cheshire and Merseyside. The four lowest are Sussex, Devon & Cornwall, Leicestershire and Dorset. This seems to suggest a general pattern that until now the law has been more vigorously enforced in the north-west of England than in the south.
The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú research also shows that altogether well over 300,000 fixed penalty fines have been issued to mobile-using motorists since the ban took effect in 2003.
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To be fair to my home county of Dorset I'm not sure that the low figures are just low enforcement effort.
I am not sure the numbers being just adjusted for population is enough, this is a county with no motorways, no cities and not a huge amount of A road mileage.
Martin, my late 'father-in-law', a fellow Scouser, was a sergeant with the Merseyside Police Force, and for most of the '90s he regaled me with his highly detailed claims the Police Service in general was deliberately being gradually deviated away from its original criminal investigative purpose in order to turn it into a snatch and grab tax collectorate with the motorist as its main target.
Your piece seems to substantiate that claim.