Distracted drivers: time to throw the book at them

It is not the word we would use, nor, we suspect, would most people.

Appalling. Scandalous. Outrageous. Sickening. These are four far more suitable words to describe the witless actions of these drivers – one of whom could have been distractedly aiming his or her vehicle straight at yours.

And then there’s the shocking revelation that one driver was caught eating cereal during the morning rush hour on the M27 at Fareham.

This beggars belief.

The recent spate of rush hour crashes on that road has highlighted how dangerous it is at the best of times even if drivers are paying full attention, let alone tucking into a portion of Special K.

And then there’s the HGV driver caught having a shave – a professional driver who must see countless acts of lunacy on the roads every day. Obviously not enough to dissuade him from debristling his chin.

You might have thought the gut-wrenching footage of lorry driver Tomasz Kroker ploughing into a car on the A34 last year and killing a mother and three children because he was scrolling through music on his phone, would have stopped people using their mobiles while driving.

Obviously not, even though he was jailed for 10 years. For our story today shows so many drivers have a callous disregard for life by continuing to use their phones at the wheel.

What all these distracted drivers have achieved, apart from breaking the law, is turn their vehicles into lethal weapons and the sooner they have the legal book thrown at them, the better.

We have obviously reached the point in this mobile-obsessed world where people simply lack the self-restraint to not use a phone when driving.