Despite being among the biggest mobile phone users, Tauranga students appear to be endorsing the ban that outlaws using a mobile phone while driving.
The ban starts today and motorists across the country will face an $80 fine and 20 demerit points for using their mobile phone while driving.
Many senior Mount Maunganui College students are supporting the ban and believe it will create better driving behaviour.


Bethlehem College headboy Josh Curtis and headgirl Christie Leppard.

Headboy Luke Van Veen says the law change is a good thing and believes it is better to make the law change sooner rather than later.
Mount Maunganui College student Tom West has lived in a country where a mobile phone ban is enforced and says it has a positive impact on the way people drive.
'When I was living in England, it happened there and when I came to New Zealand, each time I saw a police car I put my cell phone down,” says Tom.
But some of the Mount College students spoken to feared the law could create more dangerous driving as motorists resort to more extreme lengths to evade being caught using their mobile phones while driving.
Nineteen year old Mitch Farnell is a radio broadcasting student at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and believes it is going to be hard for students to adjust to the new law because they have grown up using mobile phones.
'Older people didn't have them and they remember what it's like without mobile phones,” says Mitch.
He supports the law change because it bans the use of texting while driving but says outlawing talking on a mobile and driving is completely unnecessary.
'Talking on a hand held cellphone shouldn't be illegal because there's a lot of other things that are more distracting, like changing a CD, adjusting the air conditioning or setting your GPS,” says Mitch.
Christie Leppard and Josh Curtis, head prefects at Bethlehem College, estimate over 100 students from the college use a car to travel to school and say most of them use a mobile phone while driving.
Both students admit to using a mobile phone while driving but believe the ban will improve driver behaviour.
'Because there is a high rate of crashing, by eliminating this distraction, it's got to be a good thing,” says Christie.