YOU PROBABLY PRESUMED texting while driving was already illegal, right?

Well, essentially it is — but the Transport Minister’s just taken action to clear up the situation once and for all.

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Varadkar actually flagged the move at a road safety event a few weeks ago — few people noticed, however, as the announcement was overshadowed by his scripted remarks about the garda whistleblowers.

Earlier in the speech, he’d explained, “it is already an offence to hold a mobile phone while driving and I will shortly strengthen the law by prohibiting completely the practice of texting while driving. This will be done by regulation”.

He said that while you can’t operate a phone while behind the wheel, the law wasn’t 100 per cent clear as to whether that applied to sending a text or searching the web while the phone is in the cradle.

A survey carried out earlier this year found that texting was cited by over ten per cent of drivers as the activity that caused most “near misses”.

Read: Varadkar ‘loves’ trains – and won’t be closing ‘dozens’ of rural lines 

Read: Varadkar says Callinan should withdraw ‘disgusting’ remarks – but gardaí say he won’t

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