Without the necessary resources to enforce any changes I see little point, other than trying to look like your doing something, in tightening the current requirements.    

Firstly I would agree with Ray. How will the police enforce such a ban when they don't have sufficient resources to ban hand-held use? As a general principle any new law that is not properly enforceable is a bad law. It encourages people to disregard one law. Having done this the inhibition about ignoring the law is largely reduced. Is this what we really want to achieve? What investment will be needed to equip all police cars with the equipment to monitor whether sitting in my car I am actually having a conversation on the phone or talking to myself - or possibly to a passenger?

Secondly, I have yet to see a properly conducted, sufficiently extensive survey that demonstrates that having a conversation (argument?) with a person on a hands-free phone is more distracting that having a similar argument with a passenger. Indeed with the phone conversation if road conditions demand I can terminate the conversation by cuttin the other person off. Not so easy to stop that person in the seat next to me.

As an organisation, we have banned hands free. If a call is important you pull over, simples!

Whats difficult to comprehend about the concept of pulling over?

Ban them. How do you enforce it at work, as an employer? Simple, refuse to talk to anybody who is driving. That's what we did at my last place. And as to phones beoing essential, as I pointed out only last week on this forum the retail chain at my last place evaluated the business impact of an enforced ban over a year. No impact whatsoever.

Sainsbury's, M&S, BAe, Barclay's, Tesco, Ford, Toyota. All companies built as behemoths without a single mobile phone call being made. They are not necessary for business, and in cars they kill people. Ban them,

John

Edited by user 13 August 2019 13:59:36(UTC)  | Reason: This thing has a keyboard

So my phone rings and I need to pull over. But I was on a busy main road with no parking spaces. It took 10 minutes before I found somewhere and I was having to drive slowly so as to not have to brake too sharply in order to be able to stop in the available space. This was much to the frustration of the queue building up behind me. My own frustration too. I wonder how well the drivers I had been holding up drove after I had let them free! Fortunately not an emergency this time unlike the one a few weeks ago where I had to retrace my steps as someone near and dear had been taken ill.

Hypothetical case of course, but for me it illustrates that simply saying pull over isn't the complete answer.

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

Bigmac your last response is completely out of order You stated your company policy was to ban hands free I wanted to understand how you implemented this to see if it was something we could introduce within my organisation. Please explain where I have in this post expressed any view one way or another that attracted such a personal vitriolic attack about edge protection etc.?

Its implemented by everyone having been communicated that you DONT do it, you read and agree the risk assessment that everyone has to complete electronically before every journey and putting trust in people. Yes you may face disciplinary action if caught, but management do not actively phone someone to catch them out as that would be just stupid calling someone who is driving wouldnt it?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am old enough to remember the days before mobile phones. We seemed to get along just fine, although you didn't miss what you never had.

There is a school of thought that talking on a hands free is no worse than talking to a passenger. However, all but the stupidest of passengers would know not to distract you during a tricky driving task or where there were lots of hazards to be aware of; in fact, most would be able to assist you with an extra pair of eyes. Someone on the other end of a phone would not see/be aware of this, and most of us are too polite to just tell them to shut up.

We seem to be in an age where mobile phones have become so much a part of the national psyche that we can't imagine being without them for a second. As jwk points out, this is an illusion.

If the standard of driving was much better, there might be a justification to allow limited use of hands free; unfortunately, this is not the case, and the standard is just getting worse. So many people seem to struggle with just driving; they don't have the ability to cope with anything else, or the common sense to realise they can't.

We wouldn't countenance this level of distraction in any other tasks that have such safety consequences, why is it permissible when driving, or is this part of the double standard we have as a society when it comes to killing people with a vehicle or by any other means?

This topic was discussed on this forum in the past with similar polarised views. Not getting into the passenger talking, smoking, eating, or picking your nose distraction argument - it's futile. The fact remains that a hand-held mobile is both a physical and psychological distraction and hands-free essentially a psychological one. Moreover, banning hands-free will tempt some people to use hand-held phones which is even more of a distraction.

There are still too many drivers using hand-held phones despite the tougher penalties. Empirical evidence suggests these are mostly commercial drivers but not exclusively. Enforcing any ban is difficult even with hand-held. Unless vehicle manufacturers fit a signal blocker I can't see how any hands-free can be banned. The choice is simple ban or educate drivers to use the hands-free mobile responsibly. As safety professionals we know about human behaviours, better to manage it rather than pretend we can prevent it. After all, nothing is without some risk. 

Finally, as an example, I worked for a company who 'banned' the use of hands-free whilst driving. However, no one asked for my hands-free kit to be returned and I know for a fact senior managers were ignoring the ban. Now, who is going to reprimand the CEO, CFO, etc?       

Ignoring the policing of this (by the er.. police) what exactly as H&S people and employers are we able to do? Surely only what we can under reasonable practicability? So we tell our employees to switch them off before driving, and if they forget then to ignore them. That is all we can do. It isn't reasonably practicable to tell everyone in the company that Joe has got in his car and will be unavailable to speak for 2 and 3/4 hours so don't ring him. (I don't even agree about putting them in the glove box and stopping to ring back after pulling over. It's amazing how much importance young people place upon being able to respond to a phone call or text, like their life depends on it! I think some erratic and dangerous driving would take place.

It isn't reasonably practicable to be absolutely sure Joe won't forget to switch it off or not answer it. We can only educate and raise awareness, even reassure that the company policy allows for phones not to be answered. 

Being honest, I am quite happy to ignore my phone. I am much more likely to get wound up by idiotic news programmes and commentators on radio. And I talk to myself all the time ( I don't know why, I don't listen) so I am quite likely to get pulled over!

If they were banned altogether personally I would have no issue with that. Maybe technology will get on top of the problem and stop phones working when moving. Trains would be a lot quieter! I liked the old days when if you didn't answer it meant you weren't there!

This seems like trying a policy/program to control fatigue (anyone claiming to have found a solution for fatigue is delusional and I have measured this claim carefully). If in 2019 someone thinks they can control human behavior through punitive and restrictive means, it usually means they're not readily connected with the present.

I'll use the example of seatbelts. They're not just good practice, they're also a legal mandate and yet you can still see seatbelt bypass harnesses or, my favourite, the seatbelt fastened all the time to stop the "nuissance" noise. 

If you're thinking about the company policy, a long, repetitive, impactful program might bring about some changes with regards to mobile phone use. This would probably work better in the long term as you could possibly develop habit rather than fear compliance.

There's no off the shelf quick solution for a problem that's been plaguing society for recent years. Graphic and visual campaigns were proven to do more harm than good, restrictions also usually bring out the natural instinct of revolt and quite frankly, such "policies" do more harm than good when you look at the H&S profession and further contribute to the image of stuckup and rigid professionals.

Long term programs are expensive, exhausting and quite unpredictable but they're still better than pointing to a document and expect compliance.

Originally Posted by: AcornsConsult

Originally Posted by: johnmurray

https://trl.co.uk/sites/default/files/PPR592_secure.pdf My personal observation is that an organisation dealing in safety and welfare, having an argument that effectively implies that distractions while driving are not that bad, is a bit unseemly.....if you look for the research, you will find it. In any case, being prosecuted for use of a handheld device while driving will land you with a £200 fine and 6 points, at the least. If you kill someone while driving, and the proven cause is distraction due to use of a mobile, you are almost certain to be locked-up (and banned, the period of the ban starts from your release date)

I’ll go out on a limb here and say the final argument is flawed and a red herring on the issue - the EXACT same argument given about use of mobile and having a serious incident applies equally to other distraction such as setting Satnav, smoking, packing a pipe, ref-filling a gap, reading a paper, etc, etc could result in a not in proper control/ due care or dang driving offence. Not so easy to prove but that is another debate. On a slightly different note and looking at those with a no see company policy- what is the consequence for breaching that policy?any takers on if that is included in the policy?

Perhaps I have a different perspective than most. On a motorcycle, you don't generally have the option to engage in such distracting activities, the majority of them are simply not available, or practicable to try. Yes, there are headsets to use inside a helmet that enable you to converse with others, but the wind noise and interference from other sources renders these unusable most of the time. You can only focus on riding the bike, and need to every second, which is how it should be. Cars have become too easy to drive, allowing people's attention to wander and providing the temptation to do other things at the same time.

Perhaps it is about educating drivers, but if there was a will to do this, the IAM and RoSPA would be getting a lot more customers for advanced driving courses (which I think should be made mandatory at an early stage of driving activities).

We could use the law to try and stop it, but as we all know, there aren't the police resources to enforce it. However, legislation is a blunt instrument, but sometimes it plays a part.

Perhaps the govenment should target the phone companies, where technology could be used or developed to control the issue, but then money talks, as does vested interest.

Increasing the penalties for causing death by dangerous/careless driving would be a start, if only to satisfy the demands of justice.

It is typical of this forum that people with different views are not allowed to express them rationally without being accused of all sorts of dark arts.

From what I can see there are two opinions:

1. Ban them outight, or;
2. simply banning with no enforcement strategy will not stop people using them.Therfore the ban in itself is not enough.

At no point has anyone suggested not banning because we cant live without them. They have suggested that it wont work.

Its good that some companies have policies stating staff should not use their phones in the car. This will prevent them feeling they need to answer any business calls. Personal calls however, are another matter entirely.

The law does need tightening up - you cannot make a phone call on a hand held phone, but you can take videos whist driving.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1161044/phone-driving-law-case-recording-video-UK

Speaking of the resistance to more action on road related deaths, let’s look at the statistics:

Number of people killed in terrorism related incidents- 42 (2017)

Number of homicides (2018) -726

Number of work related deaths due to accidents- 147

Number of road related deaths 1,713

This would indicate that if we as a society are serious about reducing the number of preventable deaths we should perhaps be focusing more energy on these areas where most of these deaths occur. For example it might make more sense to give higher priority to things like road safety and perhaps look in more focussed way at the resources being committed against terrorism.

Perhaps we need more police and better equipped police on our roads and motorways.