The use of hands-free mobile phones behind the wheel should be banned, road safety campaigners have warned.
Road safety charity Brake has called on drivers to turn their phones off or put them in the boot and is urging employers to ban hands-free phone use for employees driving on company time.
Figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request showed that 575,000 UK drivers have points on their licence for using a mobile phone at the wheel or being otherwise distracted, while a further 6.5 per cent of these drivers have six or more points for driving distracted.
According to a survey conducted by Brake and its partners, Specsavers and Romex, 62 per cent of children reported being driven by a driver talking on their phone and 79 per cent have spotted drivers on their mobiles outside their home or school.
The findings have been released to mark the start of Road Safety Week and come almost exactly ten years after hand-held mobile devices were banned at the wheel.
Julie Townshend, Brake deputy chief executive, said: "We're living in an age when being constantly connected is the norm; more and more of us have smartphones and find it hard to switch off, even for a minute.
"While there are enormous business benefits to this technology, it's also posing dangerous temptations to drivers to divert their concentration away from the critical task at hand, often putting our most vulnerable road users in danger.
"Many people who wouldn't dream of drink-driving are succumbing to using their phone and other distractions while driving, oblivious that the effect can be similar and consequences just as horrific."
However, despite Brake's warnings, the government has claimed it is not looking into banning hands-free kits.
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