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Review policies on mobile phone use

Following a landmark case involving Lynne-Marie Howden, businesses should review policies on mobile phones while driving, says Dr Will Murray.
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Mobiles: use out of the car

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31 March 2009

Businessman talks on his mobile phone beside his business car
Mobiles: use out of the car

Following a landmark case involving Lynne-Marie Howden, businesses should review policies on mobile phones while driving, says Dr Will Murray. It has been seen as a landmark case.

A sales boss – Lynne-Marie Howden – was recently found guilty of causing death by careless driving. She had been using a legal hands-free phone when she crashed and killed another driver.

The prosecutor said: “She lost control because she was distracted by the call. The collision would not have happened if she had not been on the phone and had been paying attention.”

Her final call was to a work colleague at 8.23am which lasted five minutes before she lost control of her car. She later told officers: “It is entirely legal to use a mobile phone with a hands-free kit. I regularly make and receive calls while driving. My car is effectively my office.”

Howden was using a hands-free kit with wired headphones attached when she fatally crashed in November 2007.

This story, and news that 3M has recently banned all mobile phone use while driving, has added weight to the increasingly compelling body of research quantifying the dangers of using mobile phones while driving:

  • University of Utah research published in 2002 showed that drivers using a hand-held or hands free phone missed twice as many hazards as when not using the phone, due to attention diversion.
  • Research from Western Australia, published in the British Medical Journal, found that driving while talking on a mobile phone – whether hand-held or hands-free – increases the risk of a collision by four times.
  • A study commissioned by a leading UK insurance company revealed that talking on any mobile phone while driving is so mentally distracting that it is as dangerous as driving when slightly over the UK blood-alcohol limit. ‘Cognitive distraction’ from a hands-free mobile phone is just as serious as that from a hand-held.
  • Four Transport Research laboratory (TRL) studies concluded that all car phone conversations and texting result in more drifting in lane, slower reaction time and more missed events.

We have therefore developed the following advice for business car managers.

It can be an offence to require people to use mobile communication equipment while driving – you are asking them to ‘drive while not in control of the vehicle’.

Managers must:

Lead by example
Tighten and enforce company policies limiting work and personal use of all mobile communication equipment while driving
Ensure drivers use voicemail or call diversion and stop regularly to check messages and return calls
Think about the ‘culture of mobile communication equipment use in your organisation, and if you contact an employee who may be driving:

  • Ask if it is safe to talk
  • State how urgent the call is
  • Keep the message brief
  • Ask the driver to call you back when they stop

Further information

More safety articles like this can be found at
www.virtualriskmanager.net

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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