Mobile Phone Fines in New Zealand: $150, 20 Points

A fixed penalty, not a scale

Unlike a speeding ticket, using a hand-held mobile phone while driving in New Zealand doesn't scale with anything — there's no sliding fee based on how bad it looked. It is illegal to use, while driving, a hand-held mobile phone to make, receive or terminate a telephone call, or to create, send or read a text message or email, and the penalties are a fixed fine and 20 demerit points. One flat figure, one flat points hit, whatever the circumstances of the stop.

What actually counts as "using" a phone

The rule is written wider than "talking on the phone". NZ Police describe it as covering making, receiving or ending a call, and creating, sending or reading a text message or email — so checking a message while the device is in your hand falls under the same rule as a call does, not a lesser one.

Worth being cautious about: this article doesn't have a source confident enough to say precisely where "driving" legally starts and stops for this rule — for instance, whether being briefly stationary at a red light or stuck in a traffic queue changes anything. Until you've checked the specific rule yourself, the safer working assumption is that a temporary stop doesn't automatically make hand-held use lawful. "The car wasn't moving" is not a defence to lean on without checking first.

Why the points matter more than the fine

The fine is the part people notice, but the points are the part that accumulates. For many driving offences you're given demerit points as well as a fine, and if you're given 100 demerit points in any 2-year period your licence will be suspended for 3 months. Twenty points is a fifth of that threshold from a single mobile phone infringement — which is why a second and third one inside the same two-year window matter far more than the arithmetic on the fines alone suggests.

Hands-free and mounted phones: a genuinely different case

Neither source behind this article is quoted specifically on hands-free or mounted-phone use, so this piece won't state precise legal wording for it. What's safe to say in general terms: hands-free and properly mounted phone use is commonly treated differently to holding a device in your hand, but "mounted" and "hands-free" are doing real work in that distinction — a phone propped in your lap or wedged between your shoulder and ear is not the same thing as one fixed in a proper mount. If you regularly use your phone for navigation or calls while driving, checking the road rules directly is worth the ten minutes, rather than assuming your setup qualifies.

If you've been issued a ticket for this

1. Check whether the notice describes hand-held use specifically — the fine and 20 demerit points apply to hand-held use, not to hands-free or properly mounted use.
2. Don't assume a brief stop in traffic changes your situation; if that's central to your case, check it against the actual rule rather than this article.
3. Remember the 20 demerit points sit against the same running total as every other driving offence — if you've had other tickets in the past two years, this one could tip you closer to a suspension.
4. If you believe the notice is wrong about what you were doing with the phone, the issuing organisation named on the notice is who to contact, not this site.
5. Treat "I wasn't actually driving" arguments carefully — the rule is applied broadly in practice, and assuming a technicality will get a ticket dismissed is a risky bet.

What this article doesn't answer

This article states the fine and demerit-point figures with confidence, because NZ Police state them directly. It does not define exactly which stationary situations still count as driving, does not state the precise legal test for what makes a phone mount compliant, and does not cover any change to the underlying rule beyond what its two sources describe. For the exact wording of the rule itself, the road rules themselves are the primary source to check.