LORRY drivers have been apprehended for using mobile phones, iPads and eating yogurt with a spoon while driving.
More than 60 drivers were stopped by police conducting an operation in North East Lincolnshire and the rest of the Humberside Force area.
They deployed a lorry which enabled police officers to see directly into the cabs of other lorries.
The operation was carried out in the wake of a series of collisions involving lorries – one of which was on the A180 and resulted in a driver having a leg amputated.
Humberside Police casualty reduction officer PC Barry Gardner said a driver was seen leaving a service station unwrapping a pack of wet wipes with which he rubbed his hands thoroughly.
The 44-tonne HGV was seen tailgating a lorry in front and weaving across lanes and half-way over into the hard shoulder.
Police trailing the lorry later passed an elderly lady with her broken down car parked in the hard shoulder of the road.
PC Gardner said: "If that lorry driver had been wiping his hands five miles further up the road he would have killed the woman."
During their three-day operation, which culminated yesterday, police officers also watched a truck driver placing his food back into his Tupperware box, while driving.
One 40-year-old driver at the wheel of a 44-tonne lorry was stopped for tailgating a tanker.
The driver of the R500 Scania from Scotland was issued with a Traffic Offence Report at the scene and will likely soon receive a fixed penalty notice. PC Gardner said: "Even when we were alongside him he was not pulling back.
"He did not have a full view of the road in front because he was tailgating.
"If it had braked he would have gone straight into the back.
"We have had a few serious accidents with HGVs, one on the M180 resulted in an amputation. So we do these operations for a reason."
He added: "The majority are competent, but crashes involving HGVs usually end up with serious injuries."
