Ask Rita: Zero Cell Phone Use While Driving Policy
Ask Rita provides policies nonprofit organizations should consider when adding a policy forbidding cell phone use while driving.
Article Highlights:
Elements to include in your nonprofit’s distracted driving policy.
Your employer should enact a “Zero Cell Phone Use While Driving” policy.
Such a policy should consider the following elements:
- Require that employees pull over at the next available safe stop to return a work call.
- Never initiate a call while the car is moving.
- Never look up a number or dial information while driving.
- Ban text messaging while driving.
Such a policy should state that any employee who, on work time, talks on a cell phone while driving will be subject to discipline, regardless of whether the employee has an accident.
If your employer feels that it must maintain instant connectivity with its employees, it could provide all employees with a “hands-free” cell phone device to facilitate safe driving.
But the hands-free solution may only slightly diminish the risk of an accident while driving, since focusing on the conversation, especially a stressful one, diverts attention away from driving onto the subject at hand.
So if hands-free phones are furnished, in addition to items 2, 3, and 4, the policy should consider:
- Never use the cell phone in bad weather or heavy traffic.
- Always keep your eyes on the road, and drop the call if you need to focus on your driving.
You might also like:
- Five Internal Controls for the Very Small Nonprofit
- Drive Your Nonprofit’s Mission by Investing in Your People
- Supporting Caregiver Employees in the Nonprofit Sector
- Increase Safety for Your Nonprofit’s Team
- Ask Rita in HR: Should Murphy’s Law Be a Consideration in Making HR Decisions?
You made it to the end! Please share this article!
Let’s help other nonprofit leaders succeed! Consider sharing this article with your friends and colleagues via email or social media.
About the Author
Blue Avocado is an online magazine fueled by a monthly newsletter designed to provide practical, tactical tips and tools to nonprofit leaders. A small but mighty team of committed social sector leaders produces the publication, enlisting content from a wide range of practitioners, funders, and experts.
Articles on Blue Avocado do not provide legal representation or legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for advice or legal counsel. Blue Avocado provides space for the nonprofit sector to express new ideas. The opinions and views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect or imply the opinions or views of Blue Avocado, its publisher, or affiliated organizations. Blue Avocado, its publisher, and affiliated organizations are not liable for website visitors’ use of the content on Blue Avocado nor for visitors’ decisions about using the Blue Avocado website.
The issue is not one of dexterity but of where the mind and attention is. all of us can easily hold a cell phone and a sandwich and drink at the same time. A hands free device does not help because our mind is not on driving. David Sneed www.mbsinstitute.org
In Washington, it’s against the law to use your cell with your hands while driving. You won’t get pulled over for it per se, but if you’re pulled over for a traffic violation AND the cop saw that you were using the phone with your hands, you get an additional fine for it. In California, they just pull you over if they just see you not using a hands-free device.
———
OliviaB.
San Francisco lawyer
In Washington, it’s against the law to use your cell with your hands while driving. You won’t get pulled over for it per se, but if you’re pulled over for a traffic violation AND the cop saw that you were using the phone with your hands, you get an additional fine for it. In California, they just pull you over if they just see you not using a hands-free device.
———
OliviaB.
San Francisco lawyer
I think it is easier to use the earphone so that you don’t need to pull over. But again I agree that this is the mind problem whether it can still focus while talking on the phone or not.