More effective public education messages to stop young people from using their smartphones while driving are being developed as part of University of Newcastle research.
The messages tap into the psychology of what constitutes acceptable behaviour.
Dr Cassandra Gauld's research has found that young people overestimate how often other young drivers use their phone while driving.
This misperception gives them confidence to think they can do it, too.
"We're trying to correct that," she said.
Dr Gauld, a social psychologist, recently won the Peter Vulcan Award for best research paper at the Australasian College of Road Safety Conference in New Zealand.
The paper was titled "Normative Influences on Illegal Smartphone Use Among Young Drivers".
"A key point of the study was illegal smartphone use. Not many studies have looked into that," she said.
"Typically young drivers don't admit to it. We were able to identify whether they were doing it by asking them about specific behaviours."
She said young drivers look to peers and "perceive how often they think they are doing a behaviour and they use that as justification for their own behaviour".
Her approach to the study follows those used in other health behaviours like drinking and smoking.
"There are common misperceptions in those other behaviours as well," she said.
"College students who drink a lot, for example, tend to think that other people also drink a lot. They use that as a justification for their own behaviour," she said.
She found this same way of thinking was "a significant predictor of illegal smartphone use".
Previously, police found it difficult to detect the offence because people keep their phones lower than the steering wheel and hold it in their lap.
But in 2020, mobile phone detection cameras were introduced.
The Newcastle Herald reported last year that more than 2500 Hunter drivers were fined almost $1 million in six months for using their mobile phone while driving.
Across the state, cameras caught almost 160,000 motorists handling a mobile phone while driving last financial year.
Dr Gauld said her study showed the number of young drivers getting caught for the offence was rising.
She believes that young people's perception that society approves of mobile phone use while driving will decrease, as more fines are issued.
This could lead to less offences, along with better public education messages.
