Driving and Mobile Phone Use

RUSSELL HILL
Member - 28 posts

make your mobile phone policy cover recreation time as well as working. It is against the law so any responsible employee will not mind if you do this.

Andrew Porter
Member - 1 post

Ensure that your policy covers all bases - eg. driving on company time using company mobiles, in company cars using personal mobiles, company mobiles in personal cars and personal time etc.etc.

The validity of setting rules of conduct in personal time are dubious, but put it in there and at least you will have protection against any liability for incidents during personal time.

Diarmuid Fahy
Member - 16 posts

There is a precedent to this. A couple of years ago a stationery supplies company driver hit and killed another driver whilst using a hand-held mobile phone. Once the company produced their policy which prohibited the use of mobiles whilst driving and a declaration signed by the driver accepting its terms, there was no further action taken against them.

You can't sit in the passenger seat 24 hours a day and monitor every driver's individual actions. The key here is the policy. Make sure it's clear and simple, and get signed confirmation from every driver that they'll follow it.

James Fairchild
Member - 217 posts

I think there is another issue here.

This company (as is their perogative) have banned completely the use of a mobile phone whilst driving.

However, I think that anyone who believes that such a policy will be observed by all employees is deluding theirself.

I'm wondering if (in the event of an accident) the company could actually be held responsible for not providing the relevant hands free kit/blue tooth to the driver?

Any thoughts? Are my comments way off, or is this indeed a legitimate possibility?

RUSSELL HILL
Member - 28 posts

James I think if the company specifically tells its drivers that hands-free mobile must not be used whilst driving, and this is backed up with an audit trail such as a drivers handbook, then the management will be covered. You cannot be with your staff 24/7 you just need to set the rules and use procedures to make sure they are read, understood and followed.

Kelly Mansfield - Workplace Law Network
Online advisor - 60 posts

Hi Kelvin,

In order to answer your query I spoke with David Faithful, who is a Solicitor and Fleet legal consultant. He says:

"The answer is potentially yes, although the company has a policy for prohibitting mobile phone use for business purposes whilst driving, the employer has set up a mechanism for use of the mobile phone while driving by providing both the phone and the car, it is forseeable that the employer will use both while off duty.

"I am assuming that the phone is a hands-free one as otherwise it should not be used while driving at all.

"Provided the employers policy bans the use of a phone while driving a company vehicle both on and off duty then this will form the basis of a defence".

I hope this helps - let me know if you need further guidance.

Regards,
Kelly

Lesley Quinn
Member - 3 posts

We have a policy that bans the use of mobiles whilst driving including the use of handsfree. We do not issue handsfree of bluetooth devices to staff, instead we encourage turning off of phones or divert to the office whilst driving. Every member of staff signs the car / phone policy on induction to the company. The policy covers business and personal use (only Senior Managers have company cars). Mobile phones were banned in 2003 and drivers caught issued with a fixed penalty and points on their licence. However the same changes were made to the penalties for not having proper control of a vehicle - a measure which can be used where a driver has been distracted by using a hands-free mobile phone. If the police or the driver chooses to take a case to court rather than use a fixed penalty notice, the penalty is 3 points, discretionary disqualification and a maximum fine of £1,000 (£2,500 for drivers of vans, lorries, buses and coaches). This penalty could potentially effect employees ability to obtain business use insurance, which is a condition of their contract of employment. We regularly send reminders to our staff , which are documented, to ensure the policy is fresh in their minds !!

Tony Carter
Member - 1 post

I have recently left a major firm where I was employed as the company safe driving advisor, and one of the key issues related to the use of the mobile phone.

I worked very closely with Prof Frank McKenna from Reading University who is one of the worlds leading authorities on driver behaviour, and as a result of his research of the 10,000+ company drivers, he found (which confirmed my thoughts) that there were 5 major contributory factors of road accidents during working hours. These 5 common faults were -

Excess Speed (the most common fault)
Following too close to other vehicles.
Distractions (particularly mobile phone use)
Fatigue
Combination of any of the above.

The issue of mobiles phones was particularly interesting as the company has a policy of issuing hands free kits but only for the purposes of acknowledging a callcall with the instruction that the driver finds somewhere safe to pull over and makes a return call in safety and where information can be written down if needs be.

Most drivers are happy and compliant with this instruction, but the real issue is with senior managers who will call their junior staff whilst they are on the road, and instead of asking if it is OK to talk, they will go straight into a difficult and sometimes technical converstaion which means the driver is having to multi task.

I raised this issue on more than one occasion due to the fact that one driver was told that if he hung up the phone on his manager even though he was driving, then he would be looking at the possibility of his P45 being ready for him on his return.

I took issue with this and actually put this senior manager in his place, but suffice to say there are issues at senior level with a lot of firms, and a large degree of re-education is required.

Coming from a Police Traffic background, I have seen the aftermath first hand, and in fact I left my position to return to personal injury law, and guess what? Accidents whilst talking on the mobile phone are still on the up.

Although there are laws and regulations in place to minimise the risk, and company liability would be decided on the balance of probability, namely are their procedures robust enough to protect themselves, mobile phone use amongst many whilst driving is still seen as socially acceptable.

Sorry, I will get off my soap box now!