TO SOME its is just a snatched conversation, a moment spent on the phone that they truly believe can’t possibly cause any harm.

To others it is perhaps a guilty stolen few minutes of chat when they know they should really be concentrating on the road.

For some, it seems, it is pure ignorance, arrogance or a mixture of both.

The message does not appear to be getting through to quite a lot of drivers that using a mobile phone while at the wheel is not only illegal, it is downright dangerous.

As this paper reports today, just a short spell observing drivers using a busy junction in Southampton found many who were prepared to risk their lives, those of their passengers and other road users for a snatched conversation.

With technology available to enable drivers to use hands-free devices there can surely be no excuse for such action.

In the end, we must shudder at what it will take to bring home the message that behind the wheel means no to using the mobile.