It’s an offence to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving. It carries a standard fine of £200 and six penalty points on your license, with a maximum of up to £1,000 and six points – although the fine can rise to £2,500 if you’re driving a bus, coach or heavy goods vehicle.

To be found guilty, the prosecution have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were driving with a phone in your hand and that you were using it. ‘Driving’ includes being stationary with the engine is running – including in traffic queues, at traffic lights or even parked at the side of the road.


There are several ways to defend against this charge. You can, for example, use call logs or data usage records to show you weren’t using your phone at the time of the alleged offence. If you were calling emergency services in response to a genuine emergency (and it wasn’t possible or practical to pull over), this would make it an exception to the law.