Welcome to Total Drive Industry Round-Up, the place for any need-to-know industry news. Our updates are aimed directly at you, the driving instructors of Britain, and are full of all the things you should know. Here’s what has been going on recently:
Drivers caught handling phones get £200 fines and six points under new ‘zero tolerance’ rules
Drivers caught handling mobile phones behind the wheel will be fined £200 and receive six penalty points on their licence from Friday 25 March under new stricter laws ushered in by the Government.
Handling a phone in any way, from touching the screen to scroll a music playlist, browse the internet, take a photograph or play a mobile game is now strictly prohibited, and these rules apply when stopped at a red light or stuck in traffic.
The only exceptions are for making calls to emergency services when there is no safe place to pull over and to use contactless payments like Apple Pay at fast-food drive-throughs and to pay tolls, while hands-free calls are also still permitted.
Drivers will still legally be allowed to use their phones as sat-navs if they are secured in a mount on the windscreen – though you can still be punished if the police believe a driver is touching a device in a cradle.
Read more: Daily Mail Online
Government to deliver 300,000 chargers by 2030 in new EV infrastructure strategy
The Government will spend £1.6 billion to build a network of 300,000 electric vehicle (EV) chargers by 2030.
It represents an increase of around 10 times the current number of publicly available chargers.
In announcing its much anticipated Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, the Department for Transport (DfT) said charging an EV will become easier and cheaper than refuelling a petrol or diesel car.
Ministers recognise that the current pace of roll out is “too slow” and that the public charging network “lets people down” in terms of reliability and transparency of pricing.
New legal requirements are being introduced this summer for chargepoint operators, mandating that they provide real-time data about chargepoints so consumers can compare prices and use apps to find their nearest available chargepoint.
Users must also be able to pay for charging by contactless card and the Government has set a 99% reliability rate for rapid chargepoints. It is also committing to improve access for disabled users.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “No matter where you live – be that a city centre or rural village, the north, south, east or west of the country – we’re powering up the switch to electric and ensuring no one gets left behind in the process.
“The scale of the climate challenge ahead of us all is well known and decarbonising transport is at the very heart of our agenda.
“That’s why we’re ensuring the country is EV-fit for future generations by the end of this decade, revolutionising our charging network and putting the consumer first.”
Read More: DIA
What do the UK’s most dangerous drivers look like?
An estimated 1.3 million people worldwide are fatally injured each year as a result of road collisions, and many more are affected by crashes.
Although driving in the UK is safer than in most countries in the world, and home to one of the lowest fatality rates, road collisions are not uncommon.
To find out which people in the UK are most likely to be involved in a vehicle collision, Zutobi, an online resource that teaches about driving and driver safety, analysed data from the Department of Transport to discover which ages, genders and locations are most affected by road accidents.
The research looks into the below:
- Changes compared to last year
- Who are the most dangerous drivers in Britain
- Are men or women more likely to be injured in a road accident
- The age group most likely to be injured
- and much more
Find Out More: DIA
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