Tightening the Law !

The ubiquitous smartphone is - everywhere !   The world has learned to live in constant communication and that safety aspect is not lost on parents.  It is not unusual to see little kids of primary school age with that vital link to  Mum and Dad.

The one place where it is essential that mobile phones not be used is when it is in the hands of a person driving a car.  If that person takes their eyes off the road to send or receive a text message it can be a recipe for disaster and even talking on a phone while driving is a distraction.

The law is very firm and getting caught even holding a mobile phone while driving carries a penalty of a $344 fine and the loss of five demerit points.  There are now fixed and mobile cameras in place that can clearly identify phone use while driving and these have added $19 million to government coffers from 43,000 fines imposed.

Unfortunately, the concept of fairness in how the law is applied  is slanted against the average motorist when the offending car is registered to a company and not an individual.  If the company claims it can not identify who was driving at that place and time, those demerit points are waived and the fine jumps from $344  to $1745, a five fold increase.

Almost one in every ten such offences escapes the application  of demerit points by that method.  As a result, the demerit points system that is supposed to remove repeat offenders from the road is allowing a class of privileged citizens to virtually thumb their nose at the law.  The provision of a company car, registered and paid by the company is often part of the renumeration package offered to CEO's and department heads.  It is also usual for sales representative and the drivers of company delivery vehicles to be driving a company owned and maintained car or van.   In the small business field it is common for vehicles to be company owned.

In many instances, the company chooses to just pay that fine because the offender is the boss or someone of importance in the company.   The fine would be treated as a normal business expense and deducted when tax was audited for the tax office. The government chooses to ignore this anomaly  because the added tax is to their advantage.

There are probably a number of privileged people using phones while driving with complete indifference to the law.  Many would have accrued demerit points that resulted in their driving license being cancelled except for this " company vehicle "  shield.  Their illegal use of phones while driving goes  unchecked.

Those phone use detection cameras have high resolution face recognition ability.  It is time law enforcement started applying taking the evidence of the offending driver to the company owning the vehicle and pursuing the matter further.   That phone use law applies to everyone.  It is not justice if the privileged escape the law !