WHEN was the last time you saw a driver using a mobile phone?

Perhaps you have even done it yourself. It only takes a moment to check that caller, change a music track or read a text.

Smartphones are wonderful devices, but using one when you are driving is as dangerous – and irresponsible – as slipping behind the wheel after a skinful.

It only takes a split second’s inattention to cause a disaster.

Yesterday a court heard how a lorry driver ploughed into a row of stationary traffic killing a mother and three children because he was looking for music on his mobile. Sentencing driver Tomasz Kroker, judge Maura McGowan said he “might as well have had his eyes closed”.

Despite a pledge to crackdown on the mobile menace, the number of motorists caught using a phone behind the wheel has fallen by almost half in four years.

Police blame the fall on a reduction in traffic officers as a result of budget cuts, saying the two go “hand in hand”.

But the problem isn’t going away. In September, the RAC said a recent survey of more than 1,700 motorists showed almost one-third (31 per cent) of motorists admitted to using a handheld phone behind the wheel compared to just eight per cent in 2014.

The only answer is a draconian crackdown and a public education campaign to make mobile use while driving as socially unacceptable as drink driving.

Ministers want to double the punishment for illegal mobile phone use. We say that can’t come soon enough.

The idea of a ‘one text and you’re out’ policy sounds harsh. But if we are to change the attitudes of young drivers maybe it has to be that tough. Drivers need to know they are going to have to turn off their phones at the wheel otherwise the next time they could be walking.