It seems Hamiltonians are not getting the message when it comes to using a mobile phone when driving.
The number of fines continues to skyrocket since the law change in 2009 and more than $65,000 was issued in fines before October in this year alone. District road policing manager Inspector Freda Grace said the rise could be attributed in part to more diligent enforcement.
"We know distraction is one of the key contributors to crashes," said Ms Grace. "Unfortunately a wide number of people are still doing it and I think one of the key things is that members of the public ring us a lot to tell us about that kind of thing."
She said there had not been any special high-level instruction to crack down on perpetrators, but there was more emphasis on following up on phone calls.
"We have a greater sense of urgency around it because of the number of people calling us and telling us people are still driving around using their cell phones."
Ms Grace said it was an $80 spot fine for perpetrators, which could be increased if the perpetrator pursued court action.
She said reactions to fines varied widely, from denials to simply accepting the fine.
"Rules and regulation we have are to ensure people's safety on the road. That's why we have the rule. I get some sense of frustration around the number of infringement notices and the money around it but the reason we issue infringement notices is we want people to engage with what the rules of the roads are."
She said that message was often lost.
"There will be a whole raft of reasons; people will be doing work, people will be contacting their children, something will have happened in their family, some people do it simply because they don't see anything wrong with it - but I'm sure in the scale of things that would be the least number of people," she said.
A research report from the NZ Transport Agency found that up to 43 per cent of mobile phone use was not detected by the existing visual observation methods.
Separate analysis from NZTA found that drivers who are texting were 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers focused on the road.
The 2015 Ministry of Transport Diverted Attention report found in 2014 diverted attention was identified as a contributing factor in 1053 crashes (12 per cent of all crashes) of which 21 were fatal, 159 were serious injury crashes, and 873 were minor injury crashes.