A roadside police officer spotted a driver allegedly on his phone – so searched his number plate, found his details and called him up. Stewart Sowman-Lund has the details in this special report for The Bulletin.

An Auckland motorist was surprised to receive a phone call from a police officer telling him to stop using his mobile phone – while he was still driving.

The driver, who The Spinoff has agreed not to name, admits interacting with his dash-mounted phone to check the navigation on a recent journey, but said it was counterintuitive to then be called up. 

“I was headed down state highway 16 city bound. I passed a [highway patrol] car, and 15 or 30 seconds later I got a phone call from an unknown number,” the driver explained. He answered, with the phone still mounted on the dash and on speaker. “They identified themselves as ‘the police’ [and asked] ‘why are you on your phone’.” 

The driver’s response? “Well, I’m talking to you.”

He presumed the stationary police car spotted him as he drove past, then searched the car’s number plate to find his details, including phone number, as registered owner.

The driver said the phone call was received while he was still travelling on the motorway at more than 80km/h. He’d never been called by a police officer before. “It was quite baffling, being startled by having the police phone you while still driving. It was quite a shock.”

The police officer allegedly verified the driver by reading out his number plate and home address. “I admitted it, yes, I did use my phone – it was in my line of sight, but where it is on my dash, it’s as much in my line of sight as the air con. It was confronting to say the least, but I gave my details.” A $150 fine arrived in the mail a few days later.

In comments to The Spinoff, a police spokesperson initially said that calling a motorist to discuss their driving was not standard practice. However, they later added that it was “not common” but, under certain circumstances, “police will occasionally contact registered vehicle owners to discuss driving behaviour”.

The spokesperson added: “In this instance, the officer involved would have been concerned enough to have contacted the driver via phone, as part of immediate follow-up actions.”

In response, the driver told The Spinoff it was more dangerous answering the phone and having a conversation with the officer than it had been adjusting his navigation. “[It’s] incredibly counterintuitive to potentially replicate a dangerous behaviour that they are trying to discourage,” he said.  

Given the public messaging around distracted driving, the driver said he was “shocked that they would ring me while driving”.

The police spokesperson said they made “no apology” for targeting “high-risk driving behaviours”. According to the transport agency, it is permitted to use a mounted phone while driving – though the official advice is that it’s safer not to use it at all.

In follow-up comments, police claimed the driver had been holding his phone, and said the officer had mouthed to the driver to “get off the phone” when he passed them on the motorway. The driver disputed this and questioned how he would have been expected to see what a police officer was mouthing on the side of the motorway as he drove past.

Asked for further details on when a police officer might choose to interact with a motorist in this way, police declined to answer. “Appreciate that you have further questions, but we have said everything we are going to say on this matter.”

Both police and the government have in recent months signalled a tougher crackdown on drivers using their mobile phones. In February, prime minister Christopher Luxon said he was willing to consider higher penalties for motorists. “People should not be on their phones while driving,” he told TVNZ’s Breakfast. Currently, the fine for being caught is $150 – the same penalty for driving more than 51 metres in a bus lane.

The number of drivers fined by police for using their phones rose by 25% between 2022 and 2023, with nearly 60,000 tickets handed out last year.

So far, the government has not announced any changes to how distracted drivers are penalised. Transport minister Simeon Brown told The Spinoff that distracted drivers are “a danger to themselves and others”. He reiterated that the government was open to raising the cost of a fine and said that this year’s government policy statement on land transport (GPS) included a commitment to review penalties for traffic offences, including consideration of indexing the value of infringements to inflation. “I am expecting to undertake this work over the GPS period,” Brown said.

In 2022, a pilot programme saw Waka Kotahi roll out cameras capable of detecting when a driver was using their phone. In the first two months of the six-month trial, more than 50,000 “potential mobile phone use offences” were detected. Police were not involved in the trial and the findings did not lead to enforcement action or warning letters.

A Waka Kotahi spokesperson confirmed no cameras are currently being used to detect distracted drivers, and those used in the 2022 trial need “further trials and a law change before they can be used to detect offences”.

It’s expected that more intelligent cameras will eventually be rolled out as police hand over responsibility of the road camera network to the transport agency. Earlier this year, reported the Herald, the first “smart cameras” were installed on a dangerous stretch of Northland highway. However, at this stage they are only being used to catch speeding drivers. Given the cameras can read number plates and scan body heat, there have been concerns raised about privacy.

Data from the Ministry of Transport shows that between 2020 and 2022, 287 drivers were involved in fatal or injury crashes caused by cell phone distraction. 

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