Posted By brian mills Morning Guys, Have anyone come up with a risk assessment for using either company or personal mobile phones at work yet please? Not on my site but recently I observed a guy banking a vehicle whilst taking a call, and a guy in a lane closure making a call. Besides the obvious “do not take a make a call whilst driving unless you have hands free” (although I have heard of drivers missing a junction because they have been so engrossed in their call, even when it is hands free) can you think up of other instances that should be mentioned in the risk assessment. I do not want to be too generic and say in the assessment that you can only use your mobile phone when it is safe to do so! At a recent safety Meeting I asked an open question around the table, “When would you use your mobile phone?” and the general answer was “when it rang”! If you have written an assessment can you send it to me please? As ever if I can reciprocate in any way please let me know? Regards Brian

Posted By brian mills Good point Robin, here mobiles are already in place both personal and company, so its risk assessment from my point of view the ban wouild be nice though. Interesting point about the camera phone I was informed once that an Employee was capturing unsafe acts on his camera phone to use later to defend himself if ever he was observed working unsafely. I never found out who he was but had to hold a TBT to the entire workforce to explain their responsibilites in reporting and not privately recording unsafe acts, maybe we should have banned them then! regards Brian

Posted By Delwynne On the construction sites I work on personal and company mobiles are both allowed but everyone is asked to move 'to a position of safety' i.e. a walkway or cabin before taking a call. Nobody should be 'working' be that driving, banking a vehicle or any other physical activity whilst on the phone. The principle behind this being not only is the person not concentrating on the activity in hand whilst talking but they're not concentrating on their environment either. Most of our operatives are fine with following this rule, the one problem we do have is with delivery drivers who seem to think that the only way they can put their phone down is following a lengthy surgical procedure.