Transport Committee
Oral evidence: Road safety: mobile phones,HC 2329
Wednesday 12 June 2019
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 12 June 2019.
Members present: Lilian Greenwood (Chair); Jack Brereton; Paul Girvan; Huw Merriman; Graham Stringer; Daniel Zeichner.
Questions 1 - 71
Witnesses
I:Dr Gemma Briggs, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Open University; Dr Shaun Helman, Chief Scientist, Transport Research Laboratory; and Nick Lyes, Head of Roads Policy, RAC.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Dr Gemma Briggs and Dr Graham Hole (RSA0062)
- RAC Motoring Services (RSA0023)
Witnesses: Dr Gemma Briggs, Dr Shaun Helman and Nick Lyes.
Q1 Chair: Welcome, and thank you very much for coming along today. This is our first oral evidence session in our overarching road safety inquiry. Would you please introduce yourselves for the record?
Nick Lyes: Good morning, Chair and Committee. My name is Nicholas Lyes. I am head of roads policy at RAC motoring services.
Dr Briggs: I am Gemma Briggs. I am a cognitive psychologist at the Open University.
Dr Helman: I am Shaun Helman, the chief scientist for behavioural science at the Transport Research Laboratory.
Q2 Chair: Thank you very much. A couple of our colleagues are running late, so they may join us along the way.
Today, we are here to talk about road safety and mobile phones. It would be helpful if you told us what the current scope is of the offence of driving while using a mobile phone or device. What does it cover? What is included and not included, so that we are clear at the start about the current state of the law?
Nick Lyes: At present, the penalties are a £200 fine and six penalty points on your licence. That changed in 2017. Prior to that, I believe it was £100 and three points. The use of a handheld mobile phone while driving became illegal in 2003, and since then the penalties have changed about three or four times. The law specifically states that the use of a handheld mobile phone while driving is illegal. That is use for interactive purposes as well.
Q3 Chair: I am looking for a bit more clarification. As I understand it, if your phone is in a cradle, that is not an offence; it is if you are holding it in your hand. Is that right? Gemma, is there any further detail we should be aware of?
Dr Briggs: If you are physically holding your phone, that is against current law. There is a bit of a grey area because, as Nick said, it is an interactive function. If someone is pulled over with a handheld phone in their hand, they could be charged with lack of control and dangerous driving, but there is a loophole. If they can prove that no data are being sent or received, there is a question over whether that is actually phone use in the eyes of the current law. There are ongoing cases looking into that. For example, a driver might be scrolling through a playlist on their handheld device and have a crash resulting in road fatalities, but the answer is that no data were being sent or received, so what is the charge? There are certainly some gaps in the current legislation.
Q4 Chair: Is there anything else we are missing in terms of what is important around the actual law as it stands, or does that cover what the offence is and what the potential issues are in the law? It naturally begs the question, is it as dangerous to be scrolling through your playlist as it is to be taking a call or sending a text? We will come on to that, but I will hand over to Graham.
Q5 Graham Stringer: Can you tell the Committee what the empirical basis is for the impact of using a mobile phone on somebody’s ability to drive safely?
Dr Helman: There is a wealth of evidence showing that if you have any kind of talking on a phone or are using a phone to text, touching it to dial or any of that, it is going to impact on your driving performance. There can be a variety of measures. At TRL, we have looked at things in a simulator environment. You get people driving a route in a simulator and you have a number of things that they need to do on the drive, such as keeping within a lane, keeping to a certain speed and responding to events that may happen. We have shown time and again that even a hands-free conversation will interfere with those measures and you will be slower to respond, for example, when selecting a response to a task when driving.
Q6 Graham Stringer: That deals to a certain extent with mobile phones. Is there a hierarchy of actions you can take in a car that means you are driving less safely? I am thinking about changing the radio station or looking at a map in one of the GPS devices that are available. Is there evidence about some being more or less dangerous than using a mobile phone?
Dr Helman: Yes, there certainly is. I will allow others to answer, but, talking about TRL’s research, we have shown in our simulator that, for example, having a hands-free or handheld conversation is riskier in its impact on your performance than, say, tuning the radio, dealing with climate controls or talking to a passenger.
There is plenty of evidence from other researchers as well showing that there is indeed a hierarchy. The important thing is how much complexity there is in the task you are trying to do that is not driving. How much cognitive complexity is there? How much are you having to think about something? How much are you going to have to manually interact with a device, and for how long does the task you are trying to achieve take your eyes off the road?
Q7 Graham Stringer: Using the general term of making it less safe to drive, is there any precision about the kinds of risk that are increased by using a mobile phone, and the other actions we have been talking about?
Dr Helman: There is broad consensus that there is increased risk of collision. That is the really interesting endpoint measure, I would say.
Q8 Graham Stringer: “Interesting” is an interesting word.
Dr Helman: Working back from that, you can look at different types of psychological response or behavioural response that are impacted. For example, if you are talking on the phone, you are more likely to be focused on the road ahead rather than scanning more widely for hazards in the driving environment.
Q9 Graham Stringer: Is there any research or information about how well understood that is by the public?
Dr Helman: There probably is. People are aware of the risks.
Nick Lyes: We do research through our RAC reports on motoring to understand how people perceive the risks and whether or not people understand the law. We found that, when the penalties changed in 2017, there was generally quite good understanding of the penalty change itself and why it was happening.
In terms of behaviour following the change to the penalty points system, we found that people identifying as occasional users of mobile phones generally stopped using their phone when driving, but it tended to be the hard-core element of people who said they used it frequently or always when they were driving who continued to do so. In terms of behaviour, there is a general sense that when the penalties changed there was an improvement initially, but it was mainly among people who perhaps did it occasionally.
Q10 Graham Stringer: Would it be fair to say that there is an analogy with drivers who drive when they are over the alcohol limit? There seems to be an irreducible minimum of hard-core drink-drivers. People know the risks and carry on driving.
Nick Lyes: Yes. In some of our research, when we asked people whether or not they used a handheld mobile phone while driving, those who often or frequently did it were also those more likely to identify as thinking that they had driven over the drink-drive limit in the previous 12 months.
Q11 Graham Stringer: Do we have numbers?
Nick Lyes: I do not have the numbers on me, but I can certainly get them across to the Committee.
Q12 Graham Stringer: It would be interesting to know the numbers. Has the number of people breaking the law on using mobile phones reduced over the last five years?
Nick Lyes: The RAC report on motoring asked a series of questions. As I said, we asked whether people had been using a mobile phone while driving, either physically driving or stationary with the engine on, both of which are of course illegal. We found that, when we asked those questions in 2016, a third of drivers admitted to using a mobile phone while driving. That equated to about 12 million.
When the penalties changed in 2017, there was increased awareness, and those identifying as using a mobile phone when driving dropped to about 23%. There was a fairly large drop in people admitting to doing it. What we saw in 2018 when we asked the same questions again, however, was that the bad habits were creeping back. There were more people admitting to using a phone while driving for taking or making a call, and for some of the other actions where you would use your phone, such as texting and engaging in social media. About 13% of people said they were taking pictures and making videos while in the physical aspect of driving their vehicle.
Q13 Chair: If someone was taking a photo or making a video, it might not be a specific offence under the mobile phone part, although it could be a specific offence of driving without due care and attention. Is that right?
Nick Lyes: That’s right. It goes back to what Gemma was saying. If you are making a video and you do not use it for any interactive function, such as putting it on social media or sending it to a friend, under the law I believe that could come under driving without due care and attention, which of course has a lesser penalty than the six points and the £200 fine.
Dr Helman: To be clear, that is completely out of line with what the evidence tells us about the relative distraction that would be involved in those tasks. Whether the phone is sending data or not has no bearing on how distracted you are as a driver.
Q14 Chair: You were saying, Shaun, that there is a hierarchy of how much distraction there is from different things, whether it is speaking on a hands-free device or a handheld device, trying to send a text or trying to change the radio station. I understand what you said about what the hierarchy was.
That is a hierarchy of things related to the mobile phone, satnav or infotainment, or other things you might have in a car. How impairing is it relative to other things that can prevent you from driving your car properly, such as being over the alcohol limit? How would you compare the risk someone poses as a driver if they are just over the alcohol limit or if they are using a handheld mobile phone?
Dr Helman: To answer that question, we need to be clear that we are talking about when they are using the phone, not the entire journey they take. If somebody is impaired with alcohol, that is a persistent state for the whole journey, so that is the impairment effect. With somebody driving using a mobile phone, you need to look at performance, things like reacting to events in a driving simulator. Being at the UK legal limit for alcohol blood level is essentially the same amount of distraction, if not slightly less, than having a hands-free call. That was the study we ran in 2002 that formed part of the work that led to the law change.
Q15 Chair: Having a hands-free call is at about the same level?
Dr Helman: In the moment, yes. If somebody is obviously very intoxicated, it is probably less dangerous to be on the phone, but it depends on a number of other factors that we cannot know. It depends on the road situation, what the driver is doing, the complexity of the accident and so on. But broadly speaking, that is the answer.
Q16 Chair: Tell me again the relative difference between a hands-free conversation and a conversation where you are actually holding the phone.
Dr Helman: The evidence appears to say that there is none.
Dr Briggs: Moreover, with a hands-free phone call, or with any phone conversation, for around five minutes after you have ended the conversation—if that is what you were doing with the phone—you are still at significantly increased risk of being involved in a collision. You are around four times more likely to be involved in a collision for five minutes after you have ended the call. That is because we are talking about cognitive distraction. It is not just manually holding a phone or having your eyes on the road.
Q17 Daniel Zeichner: On cognitive distraction, I had a very exciting day yesterday. I was invited by Steve McNamara of the London Taxi Drivers Association to drive one of their new electric cabs. What was interesting to me was that I was speaking to people in the back, and because it was partitioned off, in effect, I was talking to them through an electronic device. It also had a very sophisticated mobile phone set-up that was voice activated.
What is the difference between me talking to them in the back and me talking to someone on a mobile phone through that system, where effectively all I had done was press the speaker button and said, “Call Lilian.”? What would be the difference between that conversation with Lilian and the conversation with Steve who was sitting in the back behind a screen?
Dr Briggs: Research, including some of our own, would suggest that it is a matter of shared environment. You are in the same vehicle, so you can see some of the challenges that the driver is facing even if you are not paying full attention for the whole duration. You can regulate your conversation accordingly. You can stop putting demands on the driver’s attention. Someone on the phone does not have the benefit of that shared environment and therefore will consistently demand that attention.
Something else that we have been able to show through our research by the OU and the University of Sussex is that, when you have a phone conversation with someone who obviously is not physically present, you tend to create mental images of where they are, what they are discussing and what they are up to. The mental resources required to create those mental images are also required for accurate perception of the driving situation. If the driver is using a hands-free phone, their attention is not divided, although it is constantly switched. But there is a battle going on for precious attentional resources in your brain.
Daniel Zeichner: That is helpful. Thank you.
Q18 Chair: What are the risks it creates? If you are in that situation, where you are talking to someone else on a hands-free device and, as you have just described, your mind is elsewhere and you are thinking about the other person and the conversation, what specific impact does that have on your driving ability?
Dr Briggs: It has a range of impacts, some of which Shaun has already mentioned. One that is particularly compelling is that it can affect your visual perception to the extent that you can have your eyes on the road but, because your full attention is not applied to it, you can look directly at a hazard yet fail to see it, because you do not have the cognitive resources available to do so.
As Shaun said, drivers talking on a hands-free phone or a handheld tend to focus on a highly concentrated area directly ahead of them and just above their bonnet. Even if you introduce a hazard in that point, they can still look directly at it yet fail to see it, so they fail to react to it. If hazards occur in the peripheral areas, to the sides, they are significantly less likely even to notice them in the first place.
Dr Helman: That is critical to the whole argument and the whole discussion. Hazard perception, as we call it in this country, is reading the road and anticipating what is happening on the road in front of you. It is the only driving skill that has consistently been shown to relate to collision risk. The better you are at that skill, the fewer crashes you have, all other things being equal. It is very definitely affected by even hands-free conversations.
There was some work at Reading Uni about 20 years ago showing that experienced drivers who normally have much better hazard perception skill than novices, because they have a wealth of experience to draw on, are more affected by a secondary task of talking on a phone when you give them a hazard perception test. They actually revert to the level of novices. That is a big problem because novices are a high-risk group. We think one of the reasons is that they lack that skill. You are effectively deskilling drivers if you allow them to talk on the phone.
Chair: That is compelling. We are going to go on to look at the effectiveness of the legislation.
Q19 Daniel Zeichner: In the introduction, you talked about the legislation since 2003. In 2016-17, there was quite a powerful press campaign. The Mirror and the Mail were vying in calling for action at the time, and the Secretary of State responded, which to me showed that the public get this, even though it is the public who are also committing the offence. What is your assessment of how successful the legislation has been so far?
Nick Lyes: My assessment is that initially, as I think I mentioned earlier, there were some changes to behaviour. This is again based on self-reporting. It suggested that, when there was the campaign run by the two newspapers and there were changes to the law, the public got it. They understood it. Actually, it was the people identifying as occasional users who cut down significantly.
The problem we have seen in our most recent research is that the bad habits are creeping back in. It is almost as though the changes to the law have been forgotten. Some of the evidence that has been put out by the Department for Transport shows that, when penalties change, behaviours change with them for about a year and then the bad habits start creeping back up.
It is also worth remembering that the nature of our phone use has changed significantly since 2003. When we ask people why they use a mobile phone when driving, most people tend to tell us that they think it is for an emergency. One person’s definition of an emergency could be that they need to ring their partner to tell them that they are coming home for dinner, whereas that might not be an emergency to somebody else.
Many drivers think, “It was a quick call, an emergency. I shouldn’t have done it but it’s fine.” That perception is something that needs to be cracked. It needs to be changed. There are also quite a lot of drivers who believe they can do it because, first, it is a habit and, secondly, they see other people doing it and they think they can get away with it because nobody is going to catch them.
Q20 Daniel Zeichner: As you say, phones now are very different from 2003. Have different types of use of the device become an issue? We often hear stories of the proverbial lorry driver texting. Is it texting? Is it internet searching?
Dr Helman: It is everything. A whole generation of people are just starting to drive who have not known life without smartphones. We are sitting here talking about phones distracting people from driving. What they are interested in is the fact that driving is distracting them from using their smartphone. That is what we are dealing with, and the issue will only amplify over the next five to 10 years. Automated vehicles are not going to save us because they will not be here in time. We are getting there reasonably quickly with them, but it will take time for the technology to catch up.
There has been a huge explosion in functionality, and phones are embedded in our everyday life. People know the risks, but, ultimately, they weigh up the risks, which, to them, are pretty much zero because accidents are so rare, the importance of the call and, as Nick said, the likelihood of their being caught.
Q21 Daniel Zeichner: Should the legislation reflect the fact that technology has changed, or do you think just calling it a mobile phone is still good enough for the purposes of legislating?
Dr Helman: I am no legal expert.
Nick Lyes: I am not a legal expert either, but when you look at the CPS guidance as it stands, as Gemma explained earlier, you have the issue of a handheld phone. There is the physical aspect of holding that, or a tablet, and the interactive function as well, which is all included in that definition. If you are going to focus on one area, it is probably tightening that up a little bit to include a better definition of what interactive functioning is.
Q22 Daniel Zeichner: I think you have probably already answered this, but should the notion of hands-free be revisited? How strongly do you feel that?
Dr Helman: Pretty strongly. The evidence is pretty compelling. It is also worth remembering that there are other hands-free functions that are going to be more and more common, such as voice activation of apps and so on. It is about keeping people’s hands on the vehicle, but also their eyes and their mind on the road and not on something else.
Dr Briggs: That is the problem with current legislation as well. We talk about whether the general public understand the risks. Most people you speak to who do not think it is a problem to use their handheld phone will say, “I can still steer my car and I can change gear.” That is because the law, by a process of elimination and not mentioning hands-free and the cognitive distraction that is imposed, suggests that it is a manual problem. It is a manual problem because you are taking your hands off the wheel, and it is a visual problem, obviously, because you might be taking your eyes off the road to send a text message.
It is far less well understood that cognitive distraction is in that mix as well. We are talking about three different levels of distraction that are not independent. They interact as the task goes on. That is a particular problem with current legislation.
Nick Lyes: There is also a responsibility that needs to be put on the driver if they are engaging with a hands-free function. If they are having a conversation with somebody, they should say, “Look, I am driving at the moment, so this is going to have to be extremely brief,” or, “I’ll call you back when I have parked and I am somewhere safe.” There is an element that there has to be some responsibility on the driver, if they are taking a call on a hands-free device, to say, “I can’t talk right now but I’ll call you back in half an hour.”
Q23 Daniel Zeichner: We may come to the technological solutions a bit later. What are other countries doing? Are they in the same place as us, roughly, or are others more rigorous?
Dr Helman: It is quite variable. Are there any countries that ban hands-free?
Dr Briggs: I don’t think so.
Dr Helman: I don’t think there are.
Nick Lyes: I’m not aware of any.
Dr Helman: There tend to be slight variations. For example, in some countries there is a ban just for novice drivers or perhaps older drivers. It is a mixed bag.
Q24 Daniel Zeichner: In terms of penalties, in 2017 the fines were increased and there were extra points and so on. I think what I am hearing from you is that, when there is a change, it has an effect. Is that because the public understand that the penalty has changed, or is it the publicity around it? What is your view?
Nick Lyes: A bit of both. I think the public understand. They are aware that there are penalties and they do not want to be caught. They probably also see a lot in the media and they think there is going to be greater enforcement because the penalties have changed. Unfortunately, they slip back because they think, “Well, I don’t see very many road traffic police enforcing the law, so I’m unlikely to be caught.” They slip back into the bad old tendencies.
Q25 Daniel Zeichner: The last time, the Government withdrew the option of going on a training course. Is that good or bad, in your view?
Nick Lyes: That is difficult, because I do not think there is a heck of a lot of evidence. Ipsos MORI and PACTS ran a piece of research on the effect of speed awareness courses and found that reoffending after three years among those who had been on the speed awareness course was less than those who had just taken the penalty and the points.
I do not believe any research has been done on mobile phone use in that sort of course scenario, but we would encourage that to be the case. Unfortunately, I do not have the evidence to suggest whether those courses make a difference in relation to handheld mobile phone use, but I think there is scope for the Government, the police or whoever to look into it in a little bit more detail. If it makes a difference and reduces reoffending, as the evidence suggests it has done with speeding, it should be open and an option on the table.
Q26 Daniel Zeichner: That is interesting, given that I suspect that the public, like us, were not aware of some of the points that Gemma and Shaun have been making. That might well be quite powerful.
Dr Helman: It is worth remembering that with educational campaigns and interventions we should not put all our eggs in that basket either. Typically, when the formal evidence is looked at, those types of intervention are shown to be not particularly effective at all. Where they are useful is as part of a comprehensive solution. I think you hinted at it just now.
When you change a law, what you are trying to achieve is a change in the way the public think about the offence. The way you achieve that is through a number of publicity and education-based interventions that go alongside that to support it. That is the traditional way of thinking about things in road safety. There is unfortunately little formal evidence that will back that up, but most road safety professionals would say that you have to do all of it. You cannot just change the law and you cannot just do education; you need to do it all. That is critical if you want all these things to have an effect.
Daniel Zeichner: That is really helpful; thank you.
Q27 Chair: I have a few questions. Shaun, you said that we have young people starting to drive now who have grown up in the smartphone era, and I thought it was really compelling when you said that driving gets in the way of them using their smartphone, rather than the smartphone getting in the way of the driving. Are there different attitudes among younger drivers, among drivers who are coming to driving now, about the issue of using a mobile phone, whether hands-free or not?
Dr Helman: Off the top of my head I am not sure about attitudes, but probably. I am sure Nick can back me up on that. The usage of devices in a car is certainly at higher prevalence among young drivers, and among men compared with women. The short answer is yes.
Nick Lyes: I think that is absolutely right. In our research work we found that the problem seems to be prevalent among younger drivers, but there was also a significant problem among young professionals—the 25 to 34 age bracket and even the 35 to 44 age bracket. It was much higher than average in terms of prevalence of mobile phone use at the wheel. That could indicate that there are some who perhaps feel that they have had quite a good, long driving career and that perhaps it is safer for them to do so because they have experience of driving. We also found that the problem appeared to be worse among city drivers than with those living in suburban and rural areas.
Dr Helman: There is a risk factor for people who drive for work. A lot of that might overlap with the things you have just said about young professionals. We think that work-related driving might be a bit riskier than everyday driving. One of the reasons is that they are more likely to be distracted by work calls, scheduling or whatever.
Q28 Chair: This might be slightly outside where you’re at. Employers have a vested interest in making sure that people drive safely at work, partly because they might be driving a company car, and partly because it is their employees, their staff, and they are the most important thing. I can see why someone who is under a lot of pressure, driving to a meeting and stuck in traffic, wants to make a call to say, “I’m going to be late to the meeting,” or whatever. We have all been in that situation. Are employers generally encouraging good behaviour and saying, “You should switch off your mobile phone while you are driving,” or are they providing people with hands-free kit and saying, “Make sure that you are available.”?
The attitudes of employers, particularly in a work-related driving setting, could be important in setting the tone for how we perceive and deal with the issue of using a mobile phone in a hands-free setting while driving. Is there any work on that?
Dr Helman: Work-related driving is another one of my specialisms. Unfortunately, the answer again is that it is hugely variable. There are some good companies that are engaged in very good practice. A lot of them are doing all the things you have just discussed. Very few of them that I know of have banned hands-free. Some of them have tried, but most stop short of that.
However, there are many drivers on the road driving for work who are either self-employed or working for very small employers who do not engage with what, effectively, should be part of health and safety. They do not see it as health and safety. Driving is different from health and safety in a lot of companies’ minds. The majority of drivers on the road do not work for one of the big fleets where they are really managed; they are working for a fleet that lets them pretty much do what they want. That might be quite controversial, but that is my perception.
Q29 Chair: I am just thinking about the number of people who drive around for work. Their employer would probably want to contact them while they were doing that—private hire drivers or delivery drivers. Do they have a worse accident record than others? Are they at particular risk?
Dr Helman: That is a difficult question to answer. The work from the early 2000s suggested that they did. That was when they were predominantly driving company cars. The tax laws changed and now people are more likely to drive a pool car or their own car. We are not quite sure what is going on with the crash rate of those respective groups, but when we looked at company car drivers in the early 2000s, they clearly had a higher rate, even when you took into account their higher mileage.
Q30 Chair: Nick, you were talking about advice on keeping a call short. If you are going to allow people to say, “I’m on hands-free. I can’t take your call right now; I’ll call you back in a minute,” you cannot at the same time make using a hands-free kit illegal, can you?
Nick Lyes: No. The difficulty with making hands-free illegal is that there are so many fundamental logistics around it that need to be looked at. How would companies interact with their staff, particularly if they were doing deliveries, or if they were taxi companies, for example? How would you necessarily enforce it without the technology that could pick up the call that was taking place? There are a lot of complexities around so-called banning of hands-free. It also has to be done with consideration of other distractions within the vehicle. Gemma talked about passengers and things like that, where passengers are talking to you or your kids are in the back. There might be things happening outside the car or there is the tiredness of the driver. There are so many areas that you can say are distractions.
We always say to drivers that there are always going to be distractions every time they get in their car, so they have to try their best to manage them. When I get in the car, I generally tend to turn my phone off because it is out of sight and out of mind, and I do not want to see it. I just want to focus. But of course, if you are a professional driver who relies on a mobile data terminal, for example, you cannot do that. It is about how you make the system a lot safer, based on whatever distraction it might cause.
Q31 Chair: I feel as though I am getting mixed messages. Shaun was asked a very direct question, “Would you like to ban hands-free mobile phone use in cars?”, and he said yes, because it is the conversation that is the dangerous bit. Nick, is your view that it is impossible to ban hands-free mobile phone use in cars, because it is not practical, with the things we expect people to do?
Nick Lyes: Yes. There are practicalities around it that need to be looked at, particularly from a logistical point of view; so many companies are using mobile data terminals, such as taxi companies. It is a very complex area that needs to be looked at. As I said, it also has to be looked at in relation to other distractions. These guys have done a lot more work on that than I have, so I completely accept their findings on the distractions that might be caused by hands-free devices. If we are going down that road, we probably also need to look at how we are logistically going to be able to do it, in terms of enforcement and companies that rely on mobile data terminal sets, for example.
Dr Helman: I think those positions are entirely compatible. I am answering from the perspective purely of safety. I accept that Nick has some really good points about the complexity of introducing legislation.
Q32 Chair: Maybe this is not what you have looked at, but is that why other countries have not gone down that route? You have given very compelling evidence that this presents a risk and puts pedestrians, cyclists and other road users at risk of being involved in a collision and being hit by someone who is driving a car while engaged in a phone conversation, but no country has yet sought to deal with it in that way.
Dr Briggs: That probably is the case, but just because something is difficult does not mean that we should not do it. I completely agree that there are huge complexities to deal with if we are to have an outright ban on any phone use while driving, but it needs to be a multi-pronged approach. If there is a change in legislation, it needs to be backed up by education and Government-run campaigns explaining the dangers.
We might not be able to target specifically drivers who are driving for work. I completely take the point that it is very difficult for delivery drivers—taxi drivers, for example—not to engage with technology, but there is a huge proportion of people who are driving distracted for no good reason. They are doing it to chat. They are doing it because they think they have spare attention and that driving is wasted time. As a car manufacturer recently told me, I could make my driving experience more rewarding by using the spare time that I have while driving to engage in conversation.
There are definite challenges, but there is technology. We need massive investment in technology. It has been brought up time and again. There is developing technology in America that can track phone use and can record data relating to who is using the phone, even down to the point of whether it is a passenger or the driver of the vehicle.
There are technological solutions to enforcement, but they need to be supported by other practices as well. There are some innovative policing approaches going on at the moment to enforce the current law. You may have heard about Operation SNAP in Wales. People can send in video footage that they have of people using their phones. In Operation Top Deck, led by West Midlands police in Birmingham, they have people in double-decker buses spotting people using their handheld devices. We need that kind of multi-pronged approach.
Something we could do that could be an easy win is to think about what car manufacturers are allowed to sell as being safe in their vehicles. With the increasing amount of technology that is making its way into our vehicles, how is it that there does not seem to be any regulation for them that says, “You stay focused on the road; you have your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. It is therefore safe.”? We are not talking about just recent research. We are talking about decades of research from across the world, in multiple methods, demonstrating the dangers. There is some real work to be done.
Chair: There is loads in there that we want to explore further. I will hand over to Huw to look at enforcement.
Q33 Huw Merriman: We have covered a bit of this, but if we could go through it for the record that would be great. First, the number of offences resulting in fixed penalty notices, driver retraining or court action for driving while using a mobile phone has fallen quite dramatically over the past decade. Why do you think that is?
Nick Lyes: Because there are fewer people enforcing the law.
Q34 Huw Merriman: It is purely down to lack of police?
Nick Lyes: It is as simple as that. You only have to look at the figures between 2007 and 2017. There has been a fall in full-time road traffic police officers of a third in number. It is absolutely right that that has been reflected in some of the conviction rates and fixed penalty notice rates.
Q35 Huw Merriman: You do not think it is because fewer drivers are actually using mobile phones, which would be nice if it were the case?
Nick Lyes: I do not think so. The evidence that we have from self-reporting suggests that the situation is pretty bad.
Q36 Huw Merriman: How likely are drivers to be caught for using their mobile phone? It is perhaps difficult to quantify, but you would pretty much say that they have less chance of being caught now as a result of the resource issue you have just mentioned?
Nick Lyes: I would say that is accurate, yes.
Dr Briggs: I completely agree. I believe that, in terms of recording whether or not a mobile phone has been involved in an incident that a road traffic police officer attends, they only started recording a mobile phone as a contributory factor in 2017. We do not have a lot of data, but when we look at RAC data we know by self-report that lots of people are using their phones. When we look at generalised in-car distraction as a contributory factor to road incidents, that is growing as well.
Dr Helman: There have been observational studies in the UK. I have to be honest: I do not have the numbers off the top of my head. I believe the prevalence is around 3% or 4% on average. At any point in time, roughly 3% or 4% of drivers are doing something with a phone while driving. I would be able to look up whether that has gone down or up since the time we talked about. It is probably just DFT figures anyway. You can look them up on the website.
Q37 Huw Merriman: It would be interesting. We can obviously debate whether the police have enough resources, but we won’t. They have just had another 1% on the precept, so that will give them an extra £1 billion. Do you think that the police are actually prioritising this, or is it just seen as something they put lower in their food chain in prioritising their resources towards the issue?
Nick Lyes: I think the police try to prioritise it. Certainly in discussions we have had with forces they say that it is a big issue for them. In recent years, certain forces have had concerted campaigns that last for six weeks, for example, targeting mobile phone use. Then they take the focus elsewhere. It is good to a certain degree, but ultimately we want the same sort of rigorous enforcement all the time. Of course, without the resources to do that, it is not sustainable.
Q38 Huw Merriman: We touched on technology; some police forces are using technology to identify drivers who are using their mobile phone. How much scope is there to use new technology to tackle drivers using mobile phones, and are the Government doing enough to promote it?
Dr Briggs: There is a good deal of scope for increased use of technology. I am by no means an expert on the technology that could be used and how it works. To my knowledge, there does not seem to have been any investment in technology for enforcing the current law in recent years. The technology that is currently being used by police in Wales, for example, for Operation SNAP, is literally a video upload system whereby other motorists—whether it is dashcam footage or pedestrian mobile phone footage—can upload videos of dangerous, distracted driving, and that can be assessed by an expert in the police force. There are approaches like that.
As I said, in America, technology is emerging that can detect phone use in vehicles. At the moment, over here we have digital signs being trialled by Thames Valley police and Hampshire constabulary, made by Westcotec, which are used as a kind of educational tool. They can pick up on the radio signals of mobile phones. If a car drives past one of the signs and they are using a handheld device—it will not pick up a Bluetooth signal or a hands-free device—it will flash up an image of a phone with a line through it. It is a simple educational tool to remind drivers that they should not be doing that and that we can see them. At the moment, it does not record the data. There is definite scope for building on that.
Dr Helman: I agree 100% there with Gemma. We have been in discussions with a company called One Task, based in Sydney in Australia, which has been using technology alongside the New South Wales police in Australia to detect mobile phone use with cameras. Generally, there is a camera on a bridge and a camera at the side of the road that can both take a good view of what is going on inside the car, in the driver’s seat, and very quickly detect whether a phone is in use. It can also take the number plate. That information is put into a central system where someone can see exactly whether or not somebody has been using a phone illegally.
In our discussions with One Task, they came over to the UK and we had discussions with the Department for Transport road safety team on that, but they were just initial discussions. There are difficulties with things like data protection that need to be explored. There is also the issue of type approval for the cameras being used, but even before any type approval has happened we would welcome trials of such technology taking place in this country. I think you can trial it.
Q39 Huw Merriman: You have raised two points that I want to follow up with you. First, my phone will actually require me to put “I am not driving” in it. I know that because it does it on the train, not in the car. Therefore the phone can tell. Surely, it should not be just a question of me overriding the phone. It should be the case that it will not work when I am driving, and that is it. The technology must be there, although it needs to be fixed for the train. I wanted you to comment on that.
The second part is that we have cameras watching us all the time. Is there a problem that the police are not able to use certain cameras, such as those not owned by them in high streets? They could fine motorists because they can clearly see that they are using a phone.
Nick Lyes: I guess that is probably more a question for one of the police commissioners, but I suspect that it might be the case. Other stuff has been happening on the strategic road network. For example, I think Highways England has been working with the police to use HGV cabs that have been, dare I say it, spying down on people using phones in their vehicles. It is a lot easier for them to see whether someone is using their phone down there rather than up to their ear because, as we have all mentioned, the nature of our phone use is much different now from what it was 10 or 15 years ago.
Q40 Huw Merriman: On the technology front, do you think phones could be built so that they just shut down inside a car?
Dr Briggs: I cannot comment on exactly how easy that would be. With the current technology in phones, as you say, your phone can ask you whether you are driving, but it is very much an opt-in. You can say, “No, I’m not.” I do not have the expertise to say whether or not that would be easily added, but it seems a logical progression.
Q41 Chair: Presumably it would not be able to distinguish whether you were in a car driving or as a passenger?
Dr Briggs: Potentially, yes; as I said, some of the work going on in America that we mentioned in our submission claims to be able to do just that and identify different phone use by different users within a vehicle.
Q42 Chair: But that is looking at a car and working out who is using the phone? It is not the phone knowing?
Dr Briggs: Not the phone knowing, but based on the phone signal.
Dr Helman: The technology is not the answer; it is the facilitator to the answer. That is the thing to remember. I am pretty sure that, whatever you want the technologists to do, they will do. They are really good at that. What they need is to know what they need to detect to aid the legal framework and the social acceptability that we want to build around this. That is the important thing.
Q43 Chair: We want to come on to education and behaviour change. Gemma, a few moments ago you talked about the plethora of new things that appear in new cars. Can you say a little bit more about your concerns about what manufacturers are installing in cars these days?
Dr Briggs: My concerns are based on research on attention and perception. A lot of technology is making its way into cars. It is not just phone use. Phone use is a significant danger, as we have identified today, but there is more and more coming in. For example, there is voice-activated technology in certain vehicles where you can safely keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road, and say, “I’m too cold,” and the temperature within the car can be altered.
You could argue that that is a useful safety feature because you are not necessarily having a huge amount of cognitive distraction. You are momentarily giving an order and the car is responding, but that same technology is developed so that you can say, “Tell me a joke,” and suddenly you are having interactivity within that task that is not congruent to your driving task. It is not necessary for your driving and it is taking your mind elsewhere. That is when we encounter problems. More and more technology is making its way into our vehicles without an understanding of how it cognitively distracts drivers.
In other technology that has made its way in, there are certain safety features, which we might come to later, such as the speed limiters that have been proposed. We have collision avoidance systems, all of which very much have a place in driver safety. There is a challenge at the moment where certain parts of the driving task are being taken over by the vehicle. The technology in the vehicle is accelerating constantly, but the driver of the vehicle is not keeping up in terms of their education and the way they need to interact with the vehicle. There is a problem with increasing technology that the driver can become more and more disengaged from the task of driving, to the extent that they think they have spare attention to do other things.
Q44 Chair: Presumably, things like voice-activated temperature were intended as a safer option, so it is safer to do that than to reach over to the dial that makes your car hotter. That is how old my last car was; you had to turn a dial rather than press a button.
Is there evidence about the relative risks of taking one hand off the wheel to do X and the cognitive thing of talking to your vehicle? Presumably, it depends on the complexity of the task.
Dr Briggs: Absolutely. It depends on the complexity of the task and the level of interactivity that is needed. I do not think many people would have a serious problem with a voice-activated control such as, “Change the temperature,” but they might when it becomes more and more interactive and more information is coming into the vehicle. With the same technology you can say, “Give me a restaurant review,” and then, “Send me directions to that restaurant.” Suddenly the cognitive demands of the voice-activated task become greater and greater.
Dr Helman: This is a slightly related issue but is slightly separate as well. When simple things become a problem, it is when the HMI is badly designed. The human-machine interface needs to be well designed, and often in cars it is not. That can be an issue in and of itself.
Q45 Chair: Would you like to say a bit more about that and give an example?
Dr Helman: We can use the example that Gemma has given. If I say, “I am too cold; turn up the heating,” and the system is not particularly good at understanding my voice or it asks me a follow-up question such as, “What temperature do you want?”, it is poorly designed and the task then becomes more onerous. It is about getting the design right, which I would argue is a fundamental problem with all technology and not just cars. We often do not put into the design enough thought about the end user and what they expect and want.
Q46 Daniel Zeichner: On the basis of those questions, this is slightly tangential, but as we move more and more towards automated vehicles and the intermediate period when drivers have all those assists and so on, what you are suggesting to us is that far from its being a safer thing, with someone half engaged, it is actually quite risky. Is that a fair observation?
Dr Helman: I am not sure I would agree with that. Gemma is right that there is potential for people to get things badly wrong. There is quite a lot of research going on in this space at the moment. TRL is doing quite a lot of it. Most of the research effort is focused on making sure that the things we are talking about here do not happen at a systemic level. It is about making sure that we all agree how, say, autonomous emergency braking should work and how it should be usable.
The problem comes when different car companies are doing different things, and often calling the systems different things, because they want some kind of brand attached to them. Then it becomes an issue of training the end user properly. There is huge potential with automation to improve safety. We should be cautious and we should learn lessons from previous introductions of technology, where we can see the unintended consequences if we are not careful.
Q47 Daniel Zeichner: You are suggesting that there probably needs to be stronger regulation for motor manufacturers?
Dr Helman: I think there is quite a lot. The Department and the Government certainly seem to be switched on to the need for good, close regulation of automation. It is probably not perfect, but I think today should be more about how we think about the end user and not what the new technologies are.
Chair: We want to look at the issue around education and behaviour change that you started to touch on.
Q48 Jack Brereton: First, I want to ask a follow-up question on cognitive distraction. You mentioned “Tell me a joke.” Most cars have a radio and cars have had radios for a long time. How come that is not cognitive distraction?
Dr Briggs: There is some level of distraction, of course, in listening to the radio. You can get lost in a radio programme. It is the interactivity of the phone conversation that is the significant issue. Anything that encourages or requires you to make a response in a timely manner is a particular issue. The voice-activated thing of “Tell me a joke” might not on its own necessarily be a significant issue; it is what it can lead to in terms of interactivity with that technology.
Q49 Jack Brereton: In terms of education, one of the key things has been a push for this to be seen as socially unacceptable. I know the Prime Minister has made it clear that she thinks it should be just as socially unacceptable as drinking while driving. Do you think there has been that sort of change towards the use of mobile phones while driving being socially unacceptable?
Dr Helman: I do not think it is anywhere near as socially unacceptable as drink driving. Unfortunately, I do not know why that is. The drink driving law is often held up as the definitive example of how to introduce legislation, as was the seat belt law as well. There was an enormous effort before the law to get people on board and get them ready. There is no formal evidence around that, but lots of work was done. That is my understanding, anyway.
I do not think that mobile phone use is as socially unacceptable yet. Part of the reason is that everybody knows that everybody does it. For the record, I don’t. Almost any education campaign around phone use starts with a statistic like “70% of teenagers admit using their phone last week.” Well done, you have just normalised behaviour. A more subtle approach to the way we educate might help in that respect.
Q50 Jack Brereton: Do you think it will become more socially unacceptable in the future, or are we on a trend in the opposite direction?
Dr Helman: That is such a difficult question to answer. The media play a role, probably. Honestly, if things go on as they are with no change, I do not see any reason it would change.
Nick Lyes: It will take time. I agree with Shaun that it is a really difficult question to answer. That is the goal—to make it as socially unacceptable as drink driving—but when you look at the two different areas, phones are part of your day-to-day life in a way that drinking probably was not many years ago and is not today.
The key issue for drivers is how they can disconnect themselves from their phone as soon as they get into the vehicle. It is almost that you have to make the link that, when you open your car door, suddenly your phone just goes to one side, is switched off or is put on drive safe mode. Something is switched and your phone becomes something you forget about for however long you are driving. We are nowhere near that.
Q51 Jack Brereton: Do you think people really understand the risks? Everybody knows the consequences of drink driving. Do you think people understand and are fully aware of the risks of driving while using their phone?
Nick Lyes: Our research suggests that people are aware that it is dangerous, but they still do it. It probably goes back to the idea, “If I have a quick look at my phone, it is not going to do anybody any harm.” The evidence you have heard here today suggests that that is not the case. There probably is still a lack of understanding about just how risky it can be. People know it is wrong, but I do not think they are aware of just how risky it is.
Q52 Jack Brereton: More could be done to raise awareness of how significant the dangers and the risk could be. What could be done on that? Do you think it is just a resources issue, or are there specific things that could be done?
Nick Lyes: There are a few things that could be looked at. Campaigns are important. We had a lot of drink-drive adverts over many years, and that eventually changed perceptions. The way we watch TV has changed, so I am not saying that we should put loads of adverts on TV because I do not think that is going to work, particularly for the younger generation who are using Netflix and looking at their phones all evening. There is probably a role for anti-handheld mobile phone use adverts or campaigns on platforms like that so that they can target younger people and younger professionals. There is an element of whether driving standards are fit for purpose as well. That is going into a whole other area of testing of drivers.
Q53 Jack Brereton: Prior to March 2017, there was the option for police forces to suggest driver retraining as an alternative. That is not the case now. Do you think that was more beneficial and should have remained in place, or was it right to remove it as an option for people?
Nick Lyes: It is difficult to answer that because there has been no compelling research conducted on the effectiveness of those courses when it comes to handheld mobile phone use. It happened with speed awareness courses, which showed after a three-year period that the reoffending rate for those who had been on the courses was less than those who took the penalty points and the fine. From our point of view, we would welcome any sort of research that is put forward on the effectiveness of those courses, and whether or not they reduce reoffending rates of people who have been caught using their phone at the wheel.
Q54 Jack Brereton: Does anybody else have any views on that issue?
Dr Helman: I would repeat what I said earlier. The other courses, the non-speed courses, are currently being evaluated. We are right to be cautious about the Ipsos MORI work. It was well designed, but it suffers from one key flaw, which is that there is a selection bias in the people. The people who do the course are different from the people who choose not to, or from the people who are above the threshold for being offered a course. I am probably now about to forget the question.
Q55 Jack Brereton: It was about whether it was right to remove driver retraining courses.
Dr Helman: I would remain neutral with respect to that, and cautious. Let’s not assume that a remedial education course of some kind will solve the problem. It will be one part of the puzzle, but in my opinion there is no way that it will solve the problem by itself.
Q56 Jack Brereton: I have a question about local authorities and police authorities. As you have just referenced, there is often quite an emphasis on speed and some of the other issues. Do you think there is enough emphasis on use of mobile phones and on the resource put into that particular issue?
Dr Briggs: In terms of policing, my experience of working with various policing partners is that it is very high on their agenda. It is one of the fatal four. There is a real drive, particularly at the moment, to improve enforcement, given limited resources. From a policing perspective, I think it is taken extremely seriously. It is just the difficulty of resourcing.
Q57 Chair: Shaun, you were saying that courses might or might not be effective and they are certainly not a magic bullet. Should we bring those courses back so that their effectiveness could actually be tested? I take what you say about the people who go on the course being different from the general cohort of people who use a mobile phone while driving and get caught. Do you think it is worth reintroducing them so that we can see whether they are effective?
Dr Helman: The important thing is for anything that is introduced to be properly evaluated. I am bound to say that; I am a researcher working in road safety. That is really important. As to whether we should have a specific mobile phone course brought back, perhaps. I believe at the moment the offence is dealt with in one of the more general courses; I forget the name.
Q58 Chair: In terms of the effectiveness of the current penalties for being found using a mobile phone while driving, do you think there is any merit in revisiting the level of fines or penalty points as to where those are at present? Does that make a difference, or is it just one thing in a range of things that make a difference?
Dr Helman: It is one of a number of things. There is a theory called the deterrence theory. I forget the author name and all the references, but essentially there are three things that are important: the perceived likelihood of being caught; the perceived timeliness of the penalty; and the amount. Around that, you have all the social norm stuff we talked about earlier, but that is what it comes down to. Gemma is probably more current on some of that than I am.
Dr Briggs: I completely agree.
Dr Helman: Among road safety professionals, there is a feeling that perhaps in Government and in legislation there is too much focus on what the fine is and nowhere near enough focus on the likelihood of being caught. That seems to be the thing that is most important in day-to-day behaviour.
Nick Lyes: I agree. If you revisit the penalty and the fines, what will happen is a period when driver behaviour improves, which will be good, but then it will drift back to bad habits. Yes, the penalty is important, but the importance that that penalty is going to be enforced is just as effective.
Q59 Graham Stringer: A question occurred to me while I was listening to what is very interesting evidence. Are the risks of using a mobile device greater at night than during the daytime?
Dr Briggs: I have not come across any particular work in that area.
Dr Helman: I do not know of anything that has directly addressed that, but I would predict yes for two reasons. One is that it is dark, and driving in the dark is harder. Secondly, it is more likely within the groups we are talking about, especially young people, to be a period when they are engaged in social driving. To add even more distraction to that kind of context would, I predict, make it slightly riskier.
Q60 Chair: The purpose of today’s session was to think about and identify what further action the Government need to take in relation to road safety and mobile phones. If you had to pick one action for the Government to take in that area, what would it be?
Nick Lyes: Just the one, Chair?
Q61 Chair: If you come up with two, I’m not going to say no.
Nick Lyes: One and a half. For us, the most important thing that the Government need to look at is how they are going to enforce the law. Yes, we have seen a reduction in the numbers of full-time road traffic police officers. There has been a reduction of police across the board, of course, but it is very important that the Government look at other ways that the use of handheld mobile phones at will can be enforced. That is not just about bodies; it is about looking at the technology that is available—some of the technology that Gemma spoke about in America and some of the technology being used in Australia. How can we make that used in this country, first as a trial and then to type approve all of it if we are happy with how it is being used?
The penalties are important, yes, but enforcement is the key. There is an area of campaigns and education that needs to be put into the mix as well.
Q62 Chair: Enforcement? People have to think that they are going to be caught?
Nick Lyes: Yes.
Q63 Chair: Gemma, what is your No. 1?
Dr Briggs: I completely agree with Nick. That would probably be my No. 1, but I will use this opportunity to add another. Education plays a key role, and not necessarily just education after the fact. We need a lot more public awareness as to the dangers of phone use, whether handheld or hands-free. Specifically, with the current law, by implication it is suggested that hands-free phone use is a safe alternative. That needs to be addressed. We need to establish a common understanding as to why phone use is dangerous, not just that it is. Scientifically grounded explanations can be quite compelling in helping to explain to people why this is affecting their driving in various ways. Proactive education is equally as important.
Q64 Chair: On any use of a mobile phone by a driver?
Dr Briggs: Absolutely.
Q65 Chair: Shaun, what is your No. 1?
Dr Helman: I am going to try for two. I agree with everything that has just been said. Further to that, we need better data. We need better data on prevalence and on what the real impacts are in crashes of different types of usage. For that, we are looking at STATS19 data—the injury database—and, potentially, in-depth accident investigation work. There are various projects around that, and I know that the Government are considering expanding it.
The other one that I would throw into the mix is that the Government themselves have a really large fleet. A huge number of people who work for the Government drive vehicles on Government business. I would argue that they are in a good position to adopt best practice and say, “Do you know what? We are going to take a lead on this and say no more hands-free conversation until we know what we should be doing.” That is an easy win for you.
Chair: Paul is going to sneak in an extra question.
Q66 Paul Girvan: We have an issue associated with HGV drivers who sit quite high, so nobody knows what is going on. We have gone down the route in Northern Ireland of potentially putting an HGV driver police vehicle on the road, looking down into cars and using that as an opportunity to see what is going on. There have been some indications that more and more people are sending texts rather than phoning, texts being more distracting than having a conversation. As a consequence, people are receiving texts rather than speaking to somebody. They are taking their eyes totally off the road.
I am guilty of this because I use my hands-free every day, probably several hours a day. That is a bad admission to make, but it is something that happens. How can you use technology to stop people reading texts? There is bound to be some way around it so that whenever you get into the vehicle it will not be able to access texts or data. My car will bring up a text message in the centre of the dash, which is very distracting. I do not use that function at all.
Have studies indicated a desire to identify the vehicles that can cause a very serious accident? HGVs travel at 70 mph on the motorway. The guy lifts his eye off the road, takes two seconds to read a text and goes straight into the back of another vehicle. Have you done any study to identify how many HGV drivers are causing a problem? They feel they can get away with it. They can watch films and do whatever they want. I have seen that happening; they sit up there and feel that they are not being observed.
Dr Helman: Van drivers were slightly more likely to be caught using their phone in the observational work. I am not sure if there are stats for HGVs, but I think there are official Government statistics on it. I can look them up when I get back and forward them to you. You are right: texting is more distracting than all the other things we have been talking about.
Paul Girvan: It is simply that some of those guys are doing deliveries, and as a consequence they are always in contact with their office. What used to happen historically was that you would get your order in the morning and you knew where you were going for the whole day. Now they give you orders the whole way through your day, and they send them to you by text. That is happening with all sorts of drivers, Yodel and everything else. They all do it and they all receive it that way.
Q67 Chair: Is receiving a text more distracting than receiving a phone call?
Dr Helman: All other things being equal, yes.
Q68 Chair: Or is it sending the text?
Dr Helman: If you are reading a text, you are taking your eyes off the road as well. Again, it would depend on things like message complexity and the time it takes. If you try to control for all that, I would argue probably yes.
Dr Briggs: I think it is at the top, but there is still obviously the element of cognitive distraction too. We are talking about all three levels of distraction when you are looking down and reading a text, or even composing one. You still have cognitive distraction as the double whammy at the end. You are still taking your mind away.
Q69 Chair: Presumably, some of the people driving an HGV for a company will have some sort of screen on their dashboard, probably their satnav, that the text gets flashed up on.
Dr Briggs: Yes, presumably.
Q70 Chair: They might not even be holding the phone to read the text?
Nick Lyes: The DFT THINK! team has some data that suggest that, if you are travelling at 30 mph and you look down for two seconds, you miss about 100 feet of road. That is the sort of statistic they were using. Obviously at 70 mph it is a lot worse.
Q71 Chair: That was in the pink kittens ad.
Nick Lyes: Yes, I think it was.
Chair: Paul is going to have to read the evidence and then he will not use his mobile phone hands-free in his car afterwards.
Paul Girvan: I think we’re all guilty of that.
Chair: Not me.
Thank you very much for giving evidence today.