On May 28, 2012, the New York Times published an article concerning the growing number of companies imposing bans on their employees that prohibit all cellphone use while driving. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), twenty percent of the Fortune 500 companies that the council contacted had instituted full cellphone bans while driving as company policy. Large companies, such as Shell International, have implemented these types of bans in the past few years.
According to a report released by the NSC, companies are increasingly being held accountable in crashes where their employee’s use of a cellphone while driving was a factor in the cause of the accident. The council also indicated that some companies have had to pay millions of dollars in awards in these types of cases.
Many agencies and organizations have released recommendations advising against cell phone use while driving. In December 2012, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a recommendation that all states and the District of Columbia should prohibit cellphone use while driving. Following the results of numerous studies indicating that hands-free devices were not safer than hand-held phones, the National Safety Council also issued a recommendation calling for a ban on cellphone use while driving.
Although detractors of these types of bans argue that their implementation will decrease worker productivity, this does not appear to be the case. Research conducted by the NSC showed that prohibiting cellphone use behind the wheel did not reduce employee productivity. In fact, over 90 percent of drivers questioned in these surveys indicated that their productivity level was unchanged.
See the full New York Times article at:
