IT’S positive news that the Government is set to increase the penalty for using a mobile phone at the wheel from three points to six.

I still fail to understand what part of “using a phone while driving is dangerous and can lead to deaths” drivers really don’t get.

We all know that distracting drivers in this way causes accidents – 492 in 2014 including 21 fatal and 84 serious. We’ve seen the heartbreak this brings to individual families, devastated at losing someone they love. Yet we still do it.

According to a survey last week by the RAC, nearly a third of UK motorists text, make calls and use apps while at the wheel. Half of the 1,700 people questioned said they had even taken photos and made films while driving.

It’s as if “just” driving - being in charge of a heavy, deadly machine - simply wasn’t enough and we have to add other elements to the task.

It’s not especially men or women, either. All kinds of people of a variety of ages use their hands-free mobile while driving. So, a new tougher stance by ministers is generally welcome.

However, does the punishment really fit the crime?

OK, so you get points on your licence and you have to be very careful not to get more in case you lose the right to drive for a time. But, surely, a better punishment would relate to the real instrument of wrongdoing: the phone.

So many people cannot now live without their phone (hence they have to have it welded to them even at the wheel) that being without it for a time would really be greater punishment.

I’d like to see a system where police confiscate the phone’s SIM card for a number of days, with a standard punishment of, say, three days for a first offence going up to weeks or even months.

As our phones now hold so much information, from contact details and photos to passwords and vital personal and work details, not having access to our SIM card would be a genuine hardship. The prospect of facing days without your phone might make people think twice about any phone use while driving.

Coping with that particular element of the punishment – along with points and fines – might finally get home the message that mobile phone use and driving are not compatible, and a threat to others.