Six points, and the first two years

This is the chapter with the law in it, and it's short, because the law isn't the argument. It's a fact you should have straight, and one part of it matters more than the rest.

As GOV.UK puts it, it's illegal to hold and use a phone, sat-nav, tablet or any device that can send or receive data while driving or riding a motorcycle. Any use, for any reason, online or offline, including in flight mode. Texting, calling, photos, browsing, scrolling a playlist. It applies at traffic lights, in queues, when supervising a learner, and when the car has switched its own engine off at a stop. THINK!, the government's road safety campaign, describes the 2022 strengthening that closed the old gap where only calls and texts counted. The exceptions are calling 999 or 112 when it's unsafe or impractical to stop, being safely parked, making a contactless payment while the vehicle isn't moving, and parking the car remotely.

Hands-free is allowed, as long as you don't hold the device at any point, and that includes a cradle, a windscreen mount, a headset and voice commands. The device mustn't block your view. And separately, the police can stop you if they think you're not in proper control because you're distracted, whether or not you were holding anything.

The penalty for holding and using is six points and a two-hundred-pound fine. Taken to court, the fine can reach a thousand pounds, or two and a half thousand for a lorry or bus, with a possible ban. Three points for not having a full view or proper control. I've checked those figures on the day of writing and they change, so the page is the source, not this paragraph.

Here's the part that matters most. If you passed your driving test in the last two years, six points means you lose your licence. Not a fine and a warning. The licence goes, and you take the test again. A new driver who reads one message at one red light and is seen doing it is, in that moment, back to being a learner. If you're a new driver, that's worth knowing. If you're the parent of one, it's the fact I'd want them to have, and chapter 22 has the thing that works better than telling them it.

That's the law. Everything else in this book is about why the law was never going to be what stops you, and what will.