The worrying trend of drivers 'live streaming' on Greater Manchester's roads
Today is a national day of awareness #DontStreamAndDrive
Last updated 3rd Apr 2018
A Cheshire Police officer has told Key that distracted drivers are the new danger facing our roads as more and more people live stream themselves from behind the wheel.
Today is #DontStreamAndDrive day as road police officers from across Greater Manchester and Cheshire concentrate their efforts on catching people driving whilst using social media, YouTube and catch up services.
Sergeant Neil Dewson-Smyth told us he took action when he noticed the problem whilst out on patrol: "This is primarily the use of platforms such as Periscope to live broadcast video whilst you're driving. People also use Snapchat to record video and post it immediately, as well as Facebook Live and any other social media platform that's capable of live video.
"I've been on social media as a police officer for many years and live streaming really took off about three years ago when Twitter bought Periscope.
"As I got more and more involved with that, I saw that people were streaming and driving and wanted to do something about it. I started to push the hashtag out there and decided to consolidate it into one day of action.
"A lot of people have been conditioned to think that using a phone in a holster is okay - but because you're distracted you could be crossing over the centre line markings in the road, you might not see that the vehicle in front of you has suddenly come to a stop and your reaction times are delayed."
"If you take your eyes off the road for 5 seconds when you're travelling at 40mph - you will go the distance of a football pitch and you might as well be blind folded."
Neil told us it's a risk drivers take, not only because they could harm themselves and somebody else: "It's a real danger and it is growing - it doesn't take long for me to go searching online and find people engaging in this kind of behaviour.
"People are posting content that shows them committing offences on applications which give their location and yet you couldn't imagine a burglar live streaming from the back of somebodys house smashing through a window. It's a bizarre behaviour that people are advertising this and putting other people's lives at risk."