POLICE are planning a month-long clampdown on drivers who ignore the seatbelt and mobile phone laws.

They are warning offenders that they will receive a minimum £30 fixed-penalty ticket.

"This is a road safety issue - a matter of life or death - and friendly warnings are not an option," said Sergeant Ian Butler, of North Yorkshire Police.

"Failure to wear seatbelts and using hand-held phones while driving can and does cause accidents.

"We are running a series of checks right across our central area throughout June with a view to reducing casualties by clamping down on these two safety issues."

Officers will concentrate on accident hot spots, but will also set up checks at other sites.

They will use an Automatic Number Plate Recognition vehicle, which reads the number plates of passing vehicles and checks them against police databases, to check for wanted criminals.

Government figures show that nationally, nearly one driver and front seat passenger in ten do not wear seatbelts, and four in ten rear seat passengers risk their lives by not wearing belts.

Ten front seat users are killed every year by unbelted rear seat passengers hitting them in a crash.

There are not yet national figures for the number of people who drive while using hand-held mobiles, but a recent survey at road junctions observed about two per cent of drivers using a mobile, nearly all of them hand-held.

Sgt Butler said: "It is against the law, it is against common sense, and it is clearly dangerous to do anything that diminishes your control of a vehicle.