A driver using her cellphone while stopped at a traffic light. Photo / Getty Images
Police and other Bay of Plenty road safety advocates are pleading with drivers to put their cellphones down and focus solely on their driving.
Almost 40 people a month were caught illegally using a mobile phone while driving on Tauranga and Western Bay roads in the first nine months of last year, police data shows.
The illegal practice not only hits drivers in the pocket with an instant fine of $150 and 20 demerit points, but police say this type of offence is a contributing factor in many road deaths and serious injury crashes.
The latest road policing data shows for the nine months to September 30 last year, 346 drivers in Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty - about 38 per month - were caught using a cellphone while driving. They were fined a total of $32,630.
This compared to 763 drivers and $59,440 in infringements for the 2020 calendar year - about 63 per month.
Fifteen people lost their lives on Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty roads last year, down on the 17 road fatalities in 2020 and equal to the 15 in 2019.
Police and other road safety officials say even taking your eyes off the road for a second could easily mean a serious injury crash or fatality.
During a recent 30-minute traffic survey by the Bay of Plenty Times in Chapel St near the Bay Central Shopping Centre, four drivers were seen using their cellphones.
One was texting and the others were talking on their cellphones, including a woman who held the cellphone right up to her mouth as she drove.
Another five drivers were looking down as they drove through the traffic lights and three were not wearing a seatbelt.
Several drivers were speaking to their passengers rather than focusing on the road ahead, including a van driver who leaned right across to talk to his front-seat passengers.
Assistant police commissioner Bruce O'Brien said road crashes could happen in "a matter of seconds".
"A moment of inattention when you pick up your cellphone to answer it or a bad decision about overtaking."
O'Brien said for some people the message was still not getting through and far too many people were still using their cellphones while driving.
"Unfortunately, cellphone use, excessive speed, people not wearing seatbelts and alcohol routinely were significant factors in many death and serious injury crashes.
"We have lost 320 people on roads in 2021 ... We cannot even measure the impact.
"It is incredibly frustrating for the police to see people losing their lives in completely preventable incidents."
O'Brien encouraged people to start having a road safety conversation with their families and to make it a priority.
Stacey Spall, the AA Bay of Plenty District Council chairwoman and national convenor, said the latest road policing data and the Bay of Plenty Times recent survey were concerning.
Spall said reducing distraction-related crashes, particularly the illegal use of cellphones, was a "hot topic" for the Automobile Association NZ.
She said a couple of years ago AA New Zealand and Australia AAA undertook a research project which revealed mobile phone use had become an addiction for some drivers.
"Particularly some younger drivers who are highly active on social media and text regularly. For some people, it's almost like they're physically connected to their phone, and they can't leave it alone or turn it off, even while driving."
Spall said it was disappointing and frustrating that despite New Zealand's shocking road toll, people continued to take the risk with not only their own life but other road users lives.
"Using your phone might only cause a little fender-bender. But, it could easily mean something far worse, such a bowling someone on a pedestrian crossing or a child who runs out on to the road.
"We need people to put the phone down and engage their brains 100 per cent on driving.
"Doing so makes a marked difference in reducing the chance of having a crash and ultimately saves lives."
Brake New Zealand's director Caroline Perry earlier said it was frustrating so many people still chose to put lives at risk on Bay of Plenty roads.
Perry was calling on all drivers to "give the road their full attention", including heeding the ban on using cellphones while driving and avoiding taking other risks.
"We need people to slow down, never drive fatigued or after consuming alcohol or drugs, take regular rest breaks, and abide by all the other road rules."
Fourteen people have died on our country's roads so far this year including a pedestrian in Tauranga on January 2 and a person in a single-vehicle crash on State Highway 30, south of Rotorua on January 10.
-Additional reporting NZME