A North East Fife MP has warned poor mobile reception could leave motorists stranded in an emergency.
Stephen Gethins spoke out after a report by the RAC Foundation found nearly 4,600 miles of British roads have no 2G mobile phone coverage from any network provider.
In Fife, 9% of the region’s roads receive only partial 2G coverage, which is the minimum needed to make calls and send texts.
“Partial doesn’t mean an area gets some coverage, it means just one of the four main mobile phone companies O2, EE, Vodafone and Three are providing any service,” Mr Gethins said. “If you are not on that particular network then there is no coverage.
“This is a worry for residents in these areas as well as anyone travelling across the area who may require some kind of assistance for example, if their vehicle breaks down or they become ill.
“Even adequate 3G coverage, which is the minimum level of data needed to use a smartphone, is only partial across well over half of Fife’s roads and non-existent on 70 miles of roads.
“I spend a lot of time on the road, travelling around the constituency, and this is a problem I know all too well myself.
“Poor mobile phone coverage is a big concern and the virtually non-existent service, especially in the East Neuk, is something I am working with communities to tackle.”
Meanwhile, more than a quarter of Perth and Kinross roads have patchy or non-existent mobile phone coverage.
In Perth and Kinross, 37 of the region’s 1,853 miles of road are “not spots”, with no mobile reception, while a further 463 are “partial not spots”.
The study named the A93 which runs from Perth through Blairgowrie and Rattray then through the Grampian Mountains and ends in Aberdeen as a particular concern.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “Our work shows there are thousands of miles of road along which you would not want to break down or have an accident because calling the RAC, the emergency services or even home wouldn’t be an option.
“Even where there is partial network coverage, it might not be from your network provider. And it’s not just in emergencies that we rely on our mobiles. Increasingly, we drivers depend on our smartphones for everything from telling us how to get from A to B, to what the weather is going be, to where the congestion is.”