The number of drivers illegally using a hand-held mobile phone has increased to unprecedented levels, since the original ban on their use while behind the wheel was introduced in December 2003. Since that date, drivers caught flouting the law have been given a £30 fixed penalty or a fine on conviction in court of up to £1,000 (or £2,500 for drivers of goods vehicles or those manufactured or adapted to carry nine or more passengers).

“The rate of hand-held mobile phone use by car drivers has returned to the level found in 2003, before legislation took effect”

However, under the new Road Safety Act, drivers caught using a hand-held mobile phone will be given a £60 fixed penalty fine and three penalty points on their licence. The increased penalties are due to be introduced in spring next year. The government’s get-tough stance comes as research from Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) on behalf of the Department for Transport reveals that 1.7% of car drivers, or more than 500,000 people, are continuing to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving. In addition a further 2.8% of “other drivers”, who include van, lorry and bus/coach drivers, also continue to break the law. The first survey of car drivers and “other drivers” was carried out in September 2004 when the figures for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving were 1.1% and 2.2% respectively.

A closer analysis of the figures reveals that the percentage of van drivers using a hand-held mobile phone has actually declined since September last year from 2.8% to 2.5%, but the percentage of lorry drivers with a hand-held mobile clamped to their ear has risen over the same period from 1.6% to 2.4%. Earlier this year lorry driver John Payne (31) was jailed for four years after killing a woman when he crashed into a queue of traffic while using his mobile phone. His seven-and-a-half-tonne vehicle was travelling at 47mph when it hit a Peugeot 106 being driven by Trinity Taylor (23) on the M3 near Basingstoke in October 2005. Payne, who worked for a transport company and was uninjured in the crash, was also banned from driving for seven years.

In passing sentence, Judge Michael Broderick was reported in the Daily Telegraph as saying: “Anyone wanting an illustration of the dangers of using mobile phones in a vehicle only has to look at the facts of this case.” TRL conducted surveys at 30 sites in the south east of England and included motorways, dual and single carriageways and minor roads, with more than 100,000 drivers observed.

The research says: “By April 2005, the rate of handheld mobile phone use by car drivers had returned to the level found in 2003, before legislation restricting the use of mobile phones took effect: it has since risen. The rate of hand-held mobile phone use by other drivers has risen since April 2004.” Meanwhile, the rate of hands-free mobile phone use among car drivers has dropped across the driving community at large.

The rise in the number of people using hand-held mobile phones will cause alarm in Whitehall as evidence suggests that drivers are at least four times more likely to have a crash. Road Safety Minister Stephen Ladyman says: “Missing a call won’t kill you, but a road accident might. I urge people to switch off their phones while they’re driving to make the roads safer for us all. The police are on the road looking out for drivers using phones and they do prosecute those they catch.”

The TRL research underlines the view of Steve Johnson, spokesman for risk management provider Drive & Survive and the Fleet Safety Association, that “due to a lack of robust enforcement by the police, the driving public appear to have paid scant regard” to the change in the law that made the use of hand-held mobile phones illegal whilst driving.

He says: “Although research has shown that this highly dangerous practice is equivalent to being three times over the drink-drive limit, drivers appear to be prepared to flaunt the law, presumably because the relatively small financial penalty is considered inconsequential.

“The introduction of more severe penalties in the Road Safety Bill will hopefully lead to greater compliance, but it is vital that employers communicate the changes to their drivers, rather than leave it to public information announcements and the road safety community’s publicity efforts.

“Employers must ensure that their driver and vehicle policies reflect the changes in the law, and emphasise the implications that transgressions of this nature might have on employee’s employment terms.”

Drive & Survive says that the optimum way of dealing with mobile phone usage by business drivers is:

• Bluetooth wireless hands-free kits should be mandatory
• Hands-free kits should only be used in an emergency situation
• All likely telephone numbers to be used should be on voice activation callout and receive only
• The driving policy should mandate that no phone, even with hands-free, should be used while driving unless an emergency arises.

Mr Johnson adds: “Drivers should be encouraged to stop every two hours for a rest break and to pick up voicemail messages, which can then be responded to from a safe parking place with the engine switched off.” James Sutherland, managing director of Peak Performance, says: “All businesses should have in place provisions within the company handbook outlawing the use of hand-held phones in company vehicles and those that haven’t should certainly be in the process of implementing such policies.”

Kevin Clinton, RoSPA’s head of road safety, says: “Research shows that using hand-held or hands-free phones while driving is a significant distraction and substantially increases the risk of the driver crashing. High-mileage company car drivers are more likely than most to use a mobile phone while driving. “If we are to reduce the number of work-related road accidents, it is vital that employers play their part by having policies in place to deal with managing occupational road risk, including tackling inappropriate mobile phone use.”

RoSPA has published a “Driving for Work: Mobile Phones” guide, which gives employers a starting point by providing “model” policies for them to adapt for their own use.

Personal view

The nightmare of a company driver crashing while on a mobile phone faces many directors. Jeremy Hay, chief executive of Realtime Risk Assessment, describes the actions bosses should take to avoid blame

You’re a director of a successful business. Your PA comes in to say that there’s been a crash involving one of your employees. They think someone’s been killed. Your thoughts go to the victim and their family. Was it your driver who’s died? How will that affect their immediate colleagues and morale across the organisation? What do you need to do to manage the human and business sides of the tragedy?

More news. It wasn’t your employee who died; it was a cyclist. They know that because the driver was on the phone to the office when it happened. Someone actually heard him shout “Oh my God” and then the accident and immediate aftermath, all picked up by the phone still transmitting from the footwell where the driver dropped it.

Poor guy, he’s in real trouble now. That’s the point when the walls of your office seem to turn transparent; any sense of separation between you and the chaotic crash scene disappearing along with them. Now you are in the frame. You turn to your PA: “What’s our policy on drivers using hand-held mobiles?”

Situations similar to this one have happened and will happen again. Car, van and lorry drivers have been jailed for killing other road users while talking or texting on mobile phones. Directors have come very close to going down with them: in one case, only the fact that the call in question was a personal one saved the driver’s boss.

Moreover, the problem isn’t going away, in fact it’s getting worse. Survey results released by the Department for Transport show a 50% increase in the number of car drivers flouting the mobile phone law by using hand-held phones. All the evidence indicates that drivers don’t appreciate how seriously using a phone in the car affects their driving. Neither do they think there’s much chance of them being caught and fined. The use of mobiles by working drivers goes right to the heart of corporate social responsibility. Corporately, there are financial and legal impacts that can tear into the bottom line. For instance, corporate liability insurers can easily walk away from covering a claim if it’s shown that the driver caused the incident by doing something illegal, such as using a hand-held phone at the wheel.

“A survey by a car accessory company this autumn found that drivers were more inhibited from using mobiles by peer pressure than by fear of the law”

One company is funding an uninsured damages bill for an employee’s crash that is projected to run to £9m during the tragically foreshortened lifetime of its victim. Socially, there is the stigma of your organisation being associated with a tragedy caused by an activity widely regarded as dangerous and selfish. A survey by a car accessory company this autumn found that drivers were more inhibited from using mobiles by peer pressure than by fear of the law.

For both these reasons, it is dangerously negligent either to have no written policy on using mobile phones while driving, or to fail to ensure that the existing policy is communicated and applied throughout the business. Undoubtedly, the safest policy all round is a blanket ban on all telephone calls, including hands-free. A growing number of organisations already enforce such bans. Mandating the use of hands-free kits is often seen as an easier option to sell to drivers, although it heightens the risk because the call is the potential killer, not the technology.

On-going education to make drivers aware of the dangers of using phones and to promote alternatives to calling on the move is a vital adjunct to a hands-free policy. What about sanctions? At-work driving is one of the biggest human risk factors for most organisations and mobile phone use heightens that risk. Therefore it is entirely reasonable to make breaches of mobile phone policy a disciplinary or sackable offence.

Of course, it is vital to take great care to implement the policy so that you don’t act in a way that could be seen as unfairly changing contracts of employment. Does it take guts to threaten a top salesman with the sack because he won’t follow phone policy? Of course. Would you go to jail for him? Maybe you will one day. The reason you’re on the board is because you’ve stepped up to taking that kind of call.

Whatever you do, do five things:

• Set a clear policy on mobile phones
  
  
• Communicate it loudly and clearly and regularly
  
  
• Check that drivers know what the policy is
  
  
• Check that the managers know what the policy is and have words with any that think they can contradict it
  
• Record, record, record. Make sure you have cast iron audit trails of your corporate risk management and of your drivers’ awareness and understanding of policy. You can do both of these things via a simple online tool available to any employer.

It is a win, win strategy. Enforcing policy will certainly make your fleet safer and save you money from the word go. Keeping the audit trail gives you an assured legal defence if the worst comes to the worst. Is that a hard call to make?

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