The fine for talking on a hand-held mobile phone while driving a car is going up.

Last year Victoria Police fined 59,000 people for talking on the phone, something Senior Sergeant Dale Johnson calls a selfish and dangerous act.

“It is an offence to drive using a mobile phone and hopefully these fines and increased penalties will just highlight to people that danger and cut the behaviour out,” he said.

Senior Sergeant Johnson says people try and justify it by saying it was their boss on the phone or they were rushing to get the children.

He says he has heard just about every excuse under the sun.

“The message is it’s not worth killing yourself or killing someone else on the way to getting to somewhere because of the mobile phone,” Senior Sergeant Johnson said.

“Any time you pass a vehicle and the driver’s looking down into their lap, it’s quite clear to us that they’re probably texting or doing something with their phones.”

The new fine and four demerit points come into effect on November 25.

It is however legal to use mobile phones when they are in an approved cradle linked by bluetooth or headphones.