A Crafty Police Force Has Hired A Bus To Catch Drivers Using Mobiles
Police in Devon have come up with a novel way to catch people breaking the law at the wheel: they’ve hired a bus.
From the top deck of a specially-hired bus, enterprising police in Plymouth can look right down into cars and catch drivers using mobile phones, not wearing their seat belts and a range of other offences.
The point is apparently to catch more of the people illegally using mobiles behind the wheel, and of 130 drivers and riders pulled over for doing something against the law in just a day and a half, 39 were caught texting or using the Internet. Naturally, one or two outlets have taken a light-hearted look at this.
Amazingly, almost as many people were stopped for not wearing their seat belt, which is prime Darwin Award territory. Some 36 were pulled over for that.
The cops on the bus don’t do the arresting. Using hand-held radios they call colleagues on the road, on motorbikes and in cars, who then appear out of nowhere and take over. The penalty for using a mobile behind the wheel, as we reported on at the time of the change on March 1, is now £200 and a hefty six-point wallop.
Elsewhere in the numbers, 53 drivers were stopped for speeding, two were arrested for drug driving and, presumably by coincidence, two cars were seized for being driven without insurance.
All the parties involved in the pilot scheme are said to be patting themselves on the back for a job well done, with the Plymouth Herald reporting that similar schemes will definitely run again. Plymouth residents, you’ve been warned.
Comments
Tax dollars at work.
Pounds*
Good!! Anyone who uses a phone while driving deserves everything that they get!!
Anyone who says they haven’t… is lying.
Unfortunately they stopped like 1.5 times more speeders. If it’s for smaller infractions like straying over stupidly low speed limits outside of town centers, that sucks. Otherwise, I totally agree
First Trainspotting now People spotting
I’m die hard car enthusiast . Sometimes I enjoy going over the speed limit and weaving through traffic when it feels safe , but I never accept seeing someone using his phone behind the wheel . It’s as bad as drunk driving…literally .
they don’t suspect a thing…. ;)
200 pounds and 6 points, damn ! In France it’s only 135€ and 3 points, (not enough IMO, we may increase the fine a little bit more.)
its only just increased here. but i completely agree with it seen so many morons on their phones around where i like causing crashes by doing stupid things. I personally think it should be more if they can prove you caused an incident because you were using your phone.
Careful people. Don’t get bus-ted
that pun though 😂
So… cops have to buy a ticket to give a ticket?
Ticket-ception
You know what will happen… you won’t see a policeman all day, then two will come at once.
What if you use one of these?
Is that even legal?