THERE has been, quite rightly, much opprobrium heaped on the countless drivers in Bucks who persist in using a mobile phone at the wheel, in flagrant contravention of the law.

However, I have now discovered something just as bad – drinking a cup of tea from a mug at the wheel of a truck while going round a roundabout.

Believe it or not, I witnessed this bizarre spectacle for myself on Tuesday while I was driving in Sands.

I gave way to a lorry driver at a junction and was incensed to see him holding something in his hand.

Naturally, I assumed it was a phone, or even a Yorkie bar, but how wrong could I be. The chap was negotiating the mini-roundabout while holding a white mug. Note I say it was a mug, as opposed to a plastic cup he had casually purchased. This fellow must have made himself a brew in the back of the lorry and then supped it as he drove along our roads.

It all sounds a bit flippant, but this is one example of the disgracefully lax attitude of many drivers. I see it every day – if it’s not phones they’re holding, it’s cigarettes or food or sat navs. Or it’s school run mums parking up on double lines on the pavement just as you try to walk by.

My point is that safe driving is not just about avoiding speed cameras or drinking one pint of beer instead of two – it’s about concentrating your full attention on the road at all times.

I do hope the lorry driver in Sands was doing this as a one-off. Otherwise one day he might find himself drinking his tea inside a prison cell after causing a serious accident.