WE fully back the crackdown by Bolton police on people using their mobile phones while driving.

It beggars belief that it has become an acceptable part of modern life that people are quite happy to operate a potentially lethal machine while chatting casually on a hand-held phone.

If your dentist regularly spoke to other patients on the phone while drilling your troublesome molar, you'd quickly ditch him. Yet, apparently, driving on today's clogged roads is such a doddle that we can easily concentrate on another task simultaneously.

It's a fact that, while technology has revolutionised communications, it has also provided us with a new, and potentially dangerous, irritant.

So, it's not enough that you can't go for a meal, travel on a train or bus or even walk down the street without that annoying trill somewhere, followed by a loud one-way conversation. Now, mindless mobile phone-owners must also threaten the safety of other road-users and pedestrians.

The police initiative to issue drivers who use their phones like this with a £20 fixed penalty ticket is very welcome. The answer for motorists is simple: don't phone and drive.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.