UP TO 46,000 drivers a day are illegally using handheld mobile phones while driving on the Republic's roads, research published yesterday suggests.
A study of driver behaviour following the enactment of legislation making it an offence to use handheld mobiles while driving has found that 2.3 per cent of drivers are still using handsets.
This compares with 3.6 per cent of drivers in a similar study carried out before the introduction of the 2006 Road Traffic Act.
Dr Mary O'Meara and her colleagues from the Department of Public Health, HSE-North East, collected data at five different junctions in a provincial town in October last year.
Of the 1,000 vehicles that passed through the junctions, 23 drivers were using handheld mobile phones.
The research, published in the latest edition of the Irish Medical Journal, notes that while driver behaviour has improved between January 2005 and October 2007, the improvement was not significant in statistical terms.
"Our study confirms that drivers in Ireland still continue to use mobile phones whilst driving, despite current legislation," the authors said.
"In 2006, the number of registered motor vehicles in Ireland was 2,261,466.
"If two million of these took to the roads every day our findings would suggest that in any one day up to 46,000 drivers would be driving while using handheld mobile phones."
A ban on driving while using a handheld mobile phone was enacted in September 2006.
Gardaí fined 6,171 drivers for using handheld mobile phones in the four months following the implementation of the legislation.