Stricter penalties for using hand-held mobile phones while driving came into effect earlier this year and thanks to StarTraq, the net is closing on drivers who continue to flout the law.
Under the new rules the fixed-penalty fine for offenders has doubled from £30 to £60 and three penalty points will now be added to the driver’s licence. If a case goes to court, the maximum fine is now £1,000 or £2,500 in the case of a driver of a bus, coach or goods vehicle. Offenders could even be disqualified from driving.
Now StarTraq’s new unique system, available with Teletraffic’s new DVD camera, can capture images of drivers talking while driving and process the offence, in the same way that speeding offences are managed.
The offence will be captured utilising the existing StarVision system.
An officer on the side of the road will spot a driver who is using a hand held mobile and press a button which will capture the details and denote that a violation has taken place. When this is processed through StarVision the operator will determine what type of violation has occurred and will send it down the appropriate workflow path.
One criticism of the new mobile law is the inability to enforce it, as many police forces currently only prosecute drivers by manually stopping vehicles to write out a ticket – a time consuming activity which takes them away from other core policing priorities. In forces such as Bedfordshire, safety camera photographs are used to prosecute motorists who are ‘on the phone’ (as well as speeding or jumping a red light).
In both cases, the new StarTraq/Teletraffic system could dramatically reduce the time spent on this activity by police officers and staff, releasing them for specialist police work. The ability to prosecute more illegal callers will create a credible deterrent, leading to less dangerous use of mobiles and safer motoring for all.
