Are Your Drivers Being Distracted By Their Mobile Phones?

Unfortunately – all too often stories hit the press where people have been injured or even killed on the roads – because the driver was using a mobile phone at the time.

That’s despite the law changing last year so that as well as sending a message or making a call on a handheld phone – drivers are now not allowed to take photos film videos, play games or scroll through music.

If they do get caught doing any of the above, they can face up to six points on their license and a £200 fine – that’s as well as the potential risk to other road users, pedestrians, cyclists and the like.

But the law didn’t affect hands free devices – that’s whether your mobile is in a cradle or connected via Bluetooth, despite evidence-based research showing that the distraction factor of using a mobile phone while behind the wheel is almost as great for hands-free calls as it is for hand-held calls.  

It’s because of the cognitive processes needed to listen, think, and talk while you’re engaging in a high-demand task, like driving. Another startling fact is that the impairment factor is similar to that of being just over the drink drive limit – how scary is that? *

Most of us would think that having a conversation hands-free on the phone is the same as chatting to a passenger sitting next to you, but it’s actually very different. The caller won’t know what the situation is that you are driving in – they can carry on speaking and not know that someone’s pulled out in front of you, or there’s a pedestrian trying to cross the road, meaning you need to be fully concentrating. A passenger though can visibly see that you need to focus and will go quiet so you can concentrate and focus.

In today’s fast paced society – there is a tendency to believe that we can multitask, when in fact in reality we switch from task to task. That means that your attention will switch from the driving task to that of dealing with the call. Distracted drivers see 50% less hazards than drivers who are paying full attention to the road. Again – scary stuff.

Can you be sure your drivers aren’t being distracted by their mobile phones? Have you referenced it in your Driver Risk Policy? Do you even have one? If not, we can help. We can also help with driver safety training.

To find out more about mobile phones and the law go to the Government’s website: LINK

*Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) study “How dangerous is driving with a mobile phone? Benchmarking the impairment to alcohol” by P C Burns, A Parkes, S Burton, R K Smith (TRL Limited) and D Burch. The research found that the reaction time of texting drivers is 2.8 times more than those on the drink-drive limit. For using a hand-held phone, the reaction time is 3.5 times more than those at the drink-drive limit.