Neil’s eyes on the road spot drivers on their phones across the state

Victoria Police are booking 80 people per day for using their phones while driving but Neil Mitchell thought that number seemed a little low.

“They’re booking 80 a day – 80 to me, is nothing,” he said on 3AW Mornings.

So over two and a half hours, Neil enlisted some listeners to count how many drivers they spotted using their phones on the road.

And the total is a lot more than 80.

• Michael the truckie, driving on the Monash, spotted 128 – “Because of peak hour the numbers went up very quickly unfortunately, just about every third person was on their phone,” Michael told Neil.
• James, travelling from Geelong to Port Melbourne saw 36, “Including a guy who was controlling his car with his knees,” he said.
• DJ drove from Oakleigh to Dandenong but only saw 7 – “I think they heard you,” he said to Neil.
• Rod saw 5 “in very sparse traffic”.
• Bill spotted 17, “And nine of those were trucks,” he said, while travelling between Clayton and Altona.
• In the CBD, program producer Samantha Lowcock spotted 23 drivers, including the man in the photo above.

“Mostly phones in laps, people checking text messages or dialing up calls stopped at traffic lights,” she told Neil.

Meaning Neil’s eyes on the road spotted a massive 216 drivers in just two and a half hours.

Click PLAY below to hear the full details