It's morning peak hour on Sydney's M5 motorway — traffic is crawling and police are watching.

Six officers from the New South Wales Traffic and Highway Patrol are set up between the motorway and an on-ramp at Beverly Hills in Sydney's south-west, for an operation to target drivers using mobile phones illegally.

One officer, armed with a camera and long lens, takes photographs of drivers holding their phones to call or text, while a policeman next to him records the number plates.

Their colleagues on motorbikes give chase, pull the drivers over and hand them a fine.

This is an occasion where the "I didn't do it, officer" excuse doesn't work — police have photographic proof.

Operations like this are new to New South Wales roads, but Inspector Phillip Brooks has told ABC News there will be more coming.

"Normally police officers would see people using their phones and looking down while they're on patrol," Inspector Brooks said.

"Now we're using a camera with a telephoto lens to look into the vehicle and see those drivers who are taking their eyes off the wheel."

Older drivers are 'the worst offenders'

Young people might seem like they are glued to their phones these days but police say that behind the wheel P-platers resist using them because they do not want to accumulate demerit points.

"The worst offenders are the older drivers on our roads," Inspector Brooks says.

"We know with younger drivers, they're well aware that if they do [use their mobile phone while driving] they'll lose their licence by the side of the road."

Police statistics show that in 2016, 900 P-plater drivers were fined, compared with more than 38,000 fully licensed drivers.

Seven hundred and thirty five drivers were caught talking or texting in school zones.

The penalties are four demerit points plus a fine of $325 or $433 in a school zone.

Texting while driving increases risk of crash by 23 times

Bernard Carlon, the Executive Director of the NSW Centre for Road Safety, told the ABC fines are an important deterrent.

"We know that issuing fines actually has an impact and we know people are less likely to repeat offend if they're issued a fine," Mr Carlon said.

In NSW, the law allows drivers to talk on a phone if it's in a fixed cradle or their car has hands-free technology but many people can't resist text messaging and Mr Carlon said that's a bigger danger than people might think.

"If you're using [the phone] for texting it increases your risk of a crash by 23 times," he said.

"If you're travelling at 60 kilometres per hour and you take your eyes off the road just for two seconds to look down at your phone, you travel 30 metres and anything could happen in those 30 metres."