I recall when the gov stopped the pensions booklets and my mother having to use a card and pin number.

Been there, done that. Mine could ONLY ever understand cash in her purse, given to her by my father on a weekly basis. A very similar arrangement to the one that currently exists between myself & Mrs RB then :–) ...

...anticipating my first SP payment in mid-March (understand its paid a month in arrears). Have completed the online notification so am expecting everything to go 'swimmingly' – just as it did for my buddy last March who waited 9-weeks for the 'system' to be convinced he was who he actually claimed to be and make an initial payment!!!

I keep reading that it's 'proven' that using a phone while driving is as dangerous as drink driving. Sounds a bit odd that one, certainly got a whiff of 'one study says it does but we'll ignore the 372 which didn't find the same result' about it, but that's beside the point anyway.

The problem is using a phone while driving is so common and prevalent it doesn't really matter what you do. For every one the Police have the time to pull over, another fifty will drive past tapping away on Whatsapp. I think some insurance company survey found 30% (roughly) of drivers see no problem with it, so with numbers like that any law becomes unenforceable.

For what it's worth I don't tend to use the phone while driving but I don't see the harm in the odd message or call to let work know you'll be late if you're sat in traffic doing 0.3mph as that barely qualifies as 'driving' in my opinion. That's one thing, but when I see people using both hands to text while doing 60 that is.....quite skillful actually.

I couldn't do it. Would crash right away.

The drink driver is viewed as a clown because that's a pretty straight forward, cut and dried concept which everybody can understand and get behind. Phoning while driving is a grey area as there's so many variations. Even the law itself recognises this my insisting on hands free systems, so all the Government really dislike is the physical act of holding the phone in the hand - which I do find amusing because that infers you cannot drive one handed and I know a gentleman who drives perfectly well with just one arm.

The law isn't this sketchy with drink driving, they don't say you can be a bit p***ed so long as you have a cup holder do they. But the hands free part is an omission that you'll never fully stop people using a phone while driving. Its unrealistic and unenforceable to attempt. It took the government a good decade or so to legislate on this, so plenty of people will have been driving one handed on the phone for years quite legally and think 'didnt cause me a problem before....'

Personally I think the newer phenomenon of texting drivers is worse and I have to say in my experience young women are the most consistent culprits.

Drivers DO have too many distractions in the cabin these days - phones, satnavs, audio, car computers - and passengers!

It's just not practical to differentiate between operating a hands-free phone and adjusting the temperature on many modern cars with touch-screens and no buttons, so I don't see any change in legislation coming.

Personally, I won't use a phone in any form while driving - and I deliberately bought an old-school car with buttons, but even that has a touch screen!

Oh, I taught myself years ago to ignore nagging passengers!