Excuses ring hot for errant drivers

While the number of Hawke's Bay people stopped for using cellphones while driving during a recent blitz are not yet available, some of their more imaginative excuses are, prompting one Napier police traffic section officer to say: "Oh, we've heard it all."

And they have too, with the officer saying some of the excuses were the exceedingly familiar ones.

"We had at least two where the driver blamed someone else - one woman said she had told her son not to call her while she was driving."

Another driver denied she had been using a cellphone, saying she had been holding her sunglasses case up to her ear.

Another thought he had heard something rattling and that it might have been something loose in his cellphone so was shaking it to check.

"Yes, we have heard them all," the officer said.

Acting road policing manager Inspector Rob Morgan said initial indications from officers across the country were that the figures could be high.

He said an increasing number of people had been caught using their cellphones over the April to June period this year, with 15,000 offence notices issued nationwide during the past two years.

More than 900 people were ticketed in August and September.

As part of the exercise, a number of staff across the country have been using recently purchased long-lens cameras to catch people talking or texting on their mobile phones while driving.

"We have some digital cameras now and we bought some long-range lenses to be used with those cameras," Mr Morgan said.

"It just made that sort of enforcement a bit easier and gathered evidence."

He said officers were on the lookout for brazen offenders with their cellphones up to their face.

He too conceded that people caught red-handed with their cellphones generally accepted they were in breach of the law, but gave officers a variety of excuses for their behaviour.

"But from the officer's point of view, if they're seen with the cellphone to the ear, it's a good assumption they're using the phone."

Motorists caught using a cellphone while driving were fined $80 and received 20 demerit points.