Employee Cell Phones While Driving?

Dear Professor Risk,
Ok, we have employees who use company cell phones and with all of the talk about banning its use while driving, what do you have to say about that?

Answer:
Talk about opening up a can of worms! This topic is highly emotional on both sides of the opinion isle. From a risk reduction perspective, there are several company policies and measures you can implement to reduce your risk of accidents caused while talking on your cell phone while driving. The first step is ask employees to pull over to talk when in a highly congested area and let incoming calls go to voicemail. A great safety topic for all. Logic plays a part in this scenario, talking and driving in Walla Walla verses downtown Seattle are different, recognize this and act according. Secondly, there are new, low cost hands free devices available at reasonable cost. They are now low cost and amazingly effective. Understand that talking on the phone while driving may be illegal in the near future and there is legislation introduced to make it a state wide ban. Employee accident investigations, even when not in an automobile, include the question “were you talking on a cell phone when you got hurt?” I’ve investigated no less than 10 employee accidents where it was the lack of attention while talking on the cell phone that was the root cause. The world is changing, we either change or we will be changed by it!!