HOLLYWOOD, we have a problem. Surely no one can have escaped “envelopegate” this week, when the best-movie Oscar was awarded to the wrong film.

It was rectified in an agonising piece of car-crash TV destined to be filed in the “what happens next” media archive for eternity.

A post-Oscars post-mortem has revealed that top accountant Brian Cullinan, who was in charge of handing out the correct sealed envelopes, had been distracted in the moments leading up to the big reveal.

Just seconds before passing the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty, Cullinan had posted a picture on Twitter of the previous recipient, Emma Stone, backstage with her best actress Oscar.

The outcry since the event has been deafening, with wall-to-wall coverage in the media and the hounding of Cullinan over the mistake.

Can you imagine the outcome had his inappropriate “tweeting” actually harmed anyone? At the end of the day, the worst that happened was the makers of Moonlight missed their well-deserved moment of glory and Bonnie and Clyde were made to look like Laurel and Hardy on stage.

Hundreds of people and their families don’t get off as lightly. Each year, scores of lives are destroyed in the UK in traffic accidents where drivers have been using mobile devices.

York Press:

The Government has brought in tougher penalties for drivers who use their phones - but they don't go far enough, says Maxine

In 2015 – the latest year for which figures are available – 22 people were killed and 99 seriously injured in accidents where a driver was using their phone.

The Government hopes to tackle this with tougher laws brought out this week. Drivers using a phone at the wheel will face six points and a £200 fine – double the previous penalty. The legislation is stricter for new drivers, who will have their licence revoked.

It is good to see the Government tackling this issue, but they should have gone further. When people are happy to spend hundreds of pounds on the latest mobile – the iPhone 7 plus starts at £719 – a £200 fine doesn’t seem like a steep enough financial deterrent.

However, taking away a licence is a very serious punishment and new drivers – defined as people who have passed their test in the previous two years – face 12 penalty points if caught using mobiles at the wheel.

This is good, and may work – but only if drivers know they are likely to be caught. And there’s the rub. With the thin blue line becoming thinner all the time, people know they are most likely to get away with it.

So it is welcome news that police forces will be cracking down on these dangerous drivers to tie in with the change in the law. The bad news is that it is only for seven days. It needs to be every day, until people get the message that it’s not ok to text or call and drive.

To grasp the scale of the problem, about 3,600 drivers were handed penalties in the last co-ordinated enforcement week in January.

And that’s just the people who were caught.

Next time you are out and about, look at passing cars and make a mental note of who is using a phone at the wheel. Guaranteed, it will not be only young people who are flouting the law and risking lives, but all ages and men and women alike.

A hard-hitting advertising campaign is being launched alongside the new law, with the message: “You wouldn’t drink and drive. Don’t text and drive.”

If people really can’t resist answering their mobiles at the moment they go off, they should keep the devices in the boot or glove compartment.

Or better still, take the bus.