The PSP ‘Phone Off’ campaign elicited a veritable bonanza in fines – 1,100 drivers caught for various misdemeanors, but principally over the dogged insistence by so many to talk or answer mobile phones while driving.
Over 600 people were fined €120 for using phones at the wheel – and slapped with a driving ban (between a month and a year) and two points off their licences.
Police have since stressed that drivers are four times more likely to have an accident when ‘distracted by their phone’.
A report by RTP interviewed a number of drivers who were caught over the 6-day period in which ‘Phone Off’ ran in tandem with the GNR’s ‘Smartphone, Smartdrive’ campaign and heard that some felt impelled to answer their devices when they could see it was their boss on the line.
