Posted By Malcolm Hogarth I have taken great pains to advise the powers that be that the use of hands free mobile telephones should be discouraged but have been told that as it is not against the law that the company will not take the advice. I have made sure that it is in the health and safety policy though. When I was sent a Bluetooth to use I promptly sent it back and told them that I did not intend to use it especially when driving (leading by example and all that)

Posted By Nikki The HSE has banned hands free for all personnel.

Posted By Mark Daniels The National Trust has had a policy in place for several months whereby staff are not permitted to use mobile phones of any type whilst driving on Trust business.

Posted By Molly Many thanks to all who responded - my findings suggest that the banning of the use of mobile telephones in any form while driving on company business is becoming an agenda item in many board rooms - including my own company's! Cheers

Posted By J Knight Sue Ryder Care, 2,500 employees. The company secretary (a Lawyer) banned it even before I was hired. We still allow hands free to be fitted though not used while driving. We've just had a MORR conducted by RoSPA and that says we should ban the fitting of hands free, which is good as that's what I want as well, John

Posted By Cr8r Be careful. If you ban hands free but your culture means that personnel will be expected to be contactable, then the reality is that they will answer their normal mobiles while driving as they fear reprimand and think the likelihood of an accident is minimal (a cursory glance will tell them whether they think they will get caught or not). A previous company did just this and the result was that almost without exception, people took and made calls while driving. It was against all the procedures and policy written down, but the underlying culture was that if you are given a mobile phone, you will jolly well answer it when it rings! If your culture is like this, then hands free will be the least dangerous option.

Posted By Richard Mathews My advice that the use of mobile phones, in any form, whilst driving should be banned was rejected. Then to rub salt into the wound I was asked to write guidance on the safe use of mobile phones whilst driving. Initially it was the shortest H&S guidance note that I have ever written: “DON’T”. Surprisingly, this too was rejected and I was asked to try again. So I wrote a quite long winded guidance note that when followed made it impossible to use the supplied hands free device whilst driving. That was accepted. My personal opinion is that whilst Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2003 does not make it illegal to use a hands free mobile phone whilst driving. Driving whilst at work should also be covered by the HASAW Act 1974, Section 2(2)(a) of that Act requires: the provision and maintenance of plant and systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health. Use of even hands free mobile phones whilst driving at work would not be a safe system of work. Richard

Posted By Mike Hann This is an issue upon which I have spent quite a bit of time on over the past couple of years, trying with little success to convince senior management and various car driving mobile phone using employees that we should completely ban the use of hands free mobile phones free whilst driving on the grounds of safety. To help me to do this I have in the main used the excellent research and publicity materials which are freely available from the ROSPA web site. Our company policy on mobile phone use in vehicles, (not written or approved by me I hasten to add) whilst stating that using mobile phones whilst driving, even using hands free, is unsafe and should not be done, has no real ‘teeth’ and is quite openly ignored by senior management. The policy therefore lacks any legitimacy amongst the wider community of car driving mobile phone users, who in the main also just ignore it. The simple argument upon which I have been focussing is that your brain cannot concentrate on two separate fairly complex tasks at once i.e. driving and holding a conversation. This argument, whilst apparently accepted in some respects, is a little later rejected due to the perceived “commercial need to use the phone to do business”. The view seems to be that “our competitors do it and if we don’t, we will be at a real disadvantage”. I think that we all suffer from the fact that when mobile phone use in cars first started, there was no real body of evidence to clearly show the dangers. Now that there is plenty of supporting evidence around, phone use in vehicles has become so widespread that it is too difficult or uncomfortable now to be able to implement a total ban. I would warmly welcome hearing of any case studies that may exist about companies who have found workable solutions to this problem. I would also like to hear of as many companies as possible who have taken the decision to implement a total ban. The reason for my wanting this information is that there are one of two sceptics about, who believe there are very few companies around who have been able to do this. As evidenced by the likes of BP, National Trust, IOSH and Sue Ryder referred to earlier in this thread, this is simply not the case. Many thanks in advance for any advice or assistance you are able to give. Mike

Posted By Stuart Nagle I understand that the recent move towards recommending the banning of 'hands-free' mobile phones in motor vehicles arises from an Austrialian police study that established that in accidents examined 80% of the drivers were using 'hands-free' mobile phones at the time of the accident. I have however not been able to source the report, so if anyone knows where is can be sourced (via the intanet) I would appreciate the info. Stuart

Posted By Paul Davies Severn Trent Water have now banned hands free kits, the motto is "missing a call won't kill you but answering it might"

Posted By J Knight Hi Folks, Just to pick up on two old chectnuts cited by Richard Webber. Nagging spouses do distract, but if they're in the car with you they may notice an impending near death situation, if they're bending your ear on the phone, they won't. This 'point' is sheer man in the pubbery anyway; the evidence, not the theory but the evidence, based on studies around the world, is that talking on the phone is disproportionately distracting, whatever 'reasons' we can come up with to justify taking risks with other people's lives. The West Australian study is the most recent one, but I have seen references to scandiwegian studies and others reaching the same conclusions. As for the Police on their radios; their comms on radio are short and to the point, and they have been trained to deal with them. I do wish I could say the same for taxi drivers, John

Posted By J Knight Hi Bob, I'm afraid I don't agree; it's not just the Australian study, all the studies so far published point to the same sort of conclusion; empirical studies and lab research, all strongly indicate that using a phone impedes driving performance. 3,000 deaths pa is far too high, and anything which might reduce this is good; I say this especially because I have enough imagination to see myself as one of the casualties. Employers can simply ban mobiles while driving, and discipline people breaking the ban; fifteen years ago we didn't have them, we didn't use them, and the world still turned. I never ever use a mobile while I am on the road and it has zero impact on my performance, especially as I can almost always stop within fifteen minutes and return a call, John

Posted By Robert K Lewis Just imagine also - I have taken a call in the motorway services and cannot drive for at least 15 minutes even if it was undertaken hands free. Where is the causal link in all of this. We have had this discussion before and such spurious statistics really do the anti hands free case no good at all. They simply make the person on the Clapham omnibus realise that the experts know a great deal about practically nothing in the real world. Many accidents happen close to motorway services so perhaps we should close them down and reduce the problems of people re-attuning to motorway speeds. Hands-free to accidents has yet to be proved to the same degree as cigarette smoking to lung cancer. Bob

Posted By Jim Walker Just a reality check here. When was the last time you made or recieved a really important call? You know, one that just could not wait. Most business phone calls are the "I'm on the train" variety made by people who "think" what they have to say is important - basically the dross of life. Its only 5 years ago these things were much rarer - and we managed somehow!