New campaign against careless driving

Driving with handheld electronic devices is considered careless driving.

Police last year registered 420 cases involving people who used a mobile device while driving. The year-to-date figure for 2023 is 114.

Faroese statistics regarding traffic accidents are scarce, but data from the Nordic region suggests that carelessness is one of the main causes of traffic accidents.

To shed light on this problem, the Road Safety Council is relaunching its ‘Koyr bara – alt annað er býtt’ (‘Just drive – everything else is foolish’) campaign against careless driving. The campaign will be running for three weeks.

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Drivers caught driving while using a handheld device are fined DKK 1,000. But the Road Safety Council is calling for a harsher penalty, either a heavier fine or penalty points.

In a poll from March 2023 about mobile phones and road safety, 53 percent of an unspecified number of respondents said that they never use their mobile phone while driving.

Thirty percent reported rarely driving while using a phone, 13 percent said occasionally and 4 percent said they do it frequently.

Most common among young drivers

The poll suggests that the 18-29 age group is most likely to use a mobile device while driving. About 10 percent in this age group reported doing this frequently.

More male than female respondents said they use mobile phones while driving, and 46 percent of all respondents said that the fine should be higher than DKK 1,000.

Police cases involving driving while using a mobile device

2018: 432

2019: 247

2020: 373

2021: 295

2022: 420

2023: 114 (year-to-date)

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.