There can be no starker and more tragic warning against the practice of using a mobile phone while driving than the horrific case of the couple who died in a motorway smash on the M62.

The court where lorry driver Ethen Roberts was sentenced after admitting causing the deaths of Mark and Tansie McHale heard that he was in the habit of receiving and sending text messages while at the wheel of his vehicle.

Records showed that Roberts had received and sent dozens of messages to a friend while, according to the tachograph in his vehicle, he was driving his HGV. The court heard that while likely distracted by his phone, his lorry veered into another lane on the M62 and hit the McHales’ car, resulting in both of their deaths. They were driving to the airport to embark on a holiday to Cuba.

Anyone who thinks that they can remain in control of a vehicle – whether a lorry, a van or a car – while also using their telephone should take a sobering moment to reflect on the fate of the McHales and the prison sentence of more than five years handed to Roberts.

The law which prohibits mobile phone use while at the wheel of a vehicle is not there simply as an annoyance to motorists – it is designed to stop terrible incidents such as this from occurring.

No matter how good a driver we believe we are, it takes but a moment’s distraction to lose control... and the results of that can, as we have seen, have the most devastating consequences imaginable.