I was serving an Engineering Apprenticeship at a local company and one of the Project Managers I was working with said the words "I've got to leave now, I will call you when I'm in the car" daily. He saw the time taken to drive between one place of business and another to be wasted time, so he scheduled his phone calls to take place during that time in order to stay productive.
He wasn't alone in doing that. In fact, the practice was encouraged by personal time management experts and by Senior Managers at annual performance reviews (which were basically your chance to negotiate a pay rise - YOU entered the meeting rooms wanting more pay and THEY entered the meeting rooms wanting you to do more work in the same time and for the same money).
Growing up in this world and spending around 4hrs a day on the roads, I just fitted into the culture and scheduled not only work related calls but also general chats with friends to take place during the drive time. At the time, I saw no reason not to do it.
I then drove towards a roundabout in Sandbach and went when I shouldn't...
I have a good recollection of the incident and remember seeing the car coming from my right. My thoughts are the time were that I "could easily make it" (with a couple of meters to spare) and the level of risk involved and the question of whether I had acceptable safety margins never crossed my mind. All I really thought about was car control issues - which gear to use, how much acceleration and steering around the roundabout.
There was no collision. The driver of the car I pulled out on braked firmly to avoid hitting me, blasted the horn, shouted some abuse and gave a few hand guestures before dropping back to a normal following distance with an angry look on his face. He stayed well back because in his mind, he was following an idiot who didn't know how to drive.
It suddenly occurred to me that that kind of thing was happening more and more to me at the time and as I reflected on similar incidents (also noting that "road rage" was becoming a buzzword in the press too), the phone appeared to be a consistent feature - either I was using mine, or the other driver was using theirs.
I realised that I was a crash waiting to happen and started to avoid using the phone whilst driving and to give others using the phone more space.
The change wasn't easy to make...
My Project Manager would simply re-dial if the call wasn't answered immediately and he started to make pointed comments about how hard it was to get in touch with "some" people.
My performance review meetings stopped going well - I was deemed to have lost interest in the work and subsequently demoted with a pay reduction forced on me which lead me to leave the company and relocate to another part of the country. If I'd had a mortgage and a settled family at that time, things would have been very, very difficult.
It's important to recognise the pressures facing employees to break these rules.
Fast forward to January 2020...
That working culture clearly still exists among some employers and you can see it in action by simply taking a look at drivers passing you in the street.
Do you notice that businessman in the BMW now? He's talking hands-free but seems to be doing a presentation of some sort - why's he waving his hands around like that? Presenting his monthly sales figures to his boss perhaps?
What about the delivery driver? He's been given 100 parcels and told to deliver them - something he does every day and he's experienced in doing, so who is he on the phone to? Who would ring him when he's at work? According to one such driver with an international courier I spoke to once, it's almost certainly his employer (in spite of their health and safety policy saying that employees shouldn't answer the phone when driving). They're either asking why he seems to be running late or asking him to turn around and go to collect a parcel that needs taking back to the depot.
And can you see the Engineer who is checking in with his boss to tell him what he found when he visited that last customer? Why can't he do that at the side of the road whilst stationary? Maybe he's running late for his next appointment - his employer wants him to report back after each visit but doesn't allow time for such calls in his diary.
Who is the bin truck driver talking to as he drives past your house every week doing the bins? I can't think of any realistic explanation for that one, but we all see it and we see it a lot which probably rules out the possibility of it being a one off call made necessary by emergency circumstances.
The bottom line is that time is money for your employer, and not making best use of your time can cost you your career because it costs them money and it is of course our careers that fund our lifestyles and memorable moments in life - so we all face incredible pressure to work at 110% all of the time.
This obviously isn't the way to go though guys - we all know that!
Use of a mobile phone whilst driving carries a fixed penalty of £200 fine and 6 points. Your boss doesn't pay it for you, YOU pay it and the points go onto YOUR licence to be declared to YOUR insurance company in the future! New drivers with less than 2yrs experience will lose their licence under the terms of the New Driver's Act and so will anyone else who has already got 6 or more points on their licence - so there's every chance that you'll be disadvantaged at work anyway if you get caught using your phone at a the wheel.
And then of course, there's that well publicised issue of people's driving standards slipping and the impact on safety. Some research shows that you are more likely to be involved in a crash whilst using a mobile phone than you are if you are above the drink drive limit and although it might be legal, the risks don't really drop that much if you're hands-free either. The reason for that is the culture of making important calls during the driving - IF that businessman IS giving his year end sales figures to his boss on the other end of the phone whilst driving his BMW past you, and IF his pay review depends on those figures, then you can bet he'll be wanting to impress his boss and applying his mind to the call rather than the road around him. In contrast, if he's calling his wife to tell her that he's due home at 7pm tonight, then he doesn't mind stuttering a bit with her because she isn't in charge of his pay rise!!
Either way, in the worst case situation of a crash taking place whilst he is on the phone like that, and somebody losing their life in that crash, the driver would certainly be banned from driving for a minimum of 2yrs and could face up to 14yrs in prison, unlimited fines and be asked to re-take their test before driving again (maybe even an extended re-test dependent on the circumstances).
In a piece of writing I did for a magazine recently I described the current lock-down as being a once in a lifetime chance to reset the system. Wouldn't it be nice if we could reset it in ways that make life better and safer for us all and step back from this culture of making every moment productive, calling people whilst they are driving, sleeping or generally trying to spend some time with their families and immediately trying again or holding back their career progression if they don't answer?
Please don't use the phone whilst you're driving, whatever the reason and regardless of whether you are hands-free or not
Nobody ever thinks it will happen to them, but of course the people who it DOES happen to are just normal people like you and me trying to get by in the world
Nick Heath Driver Training is located in Rode Heath on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and provides driving training services to those looking to either improve their driving or learn from scratch. In addition to media work, we conduct Taxi Driver Assessments for local authorities and offer Advanced Driver Training and Testing, Motorway Training and Fuel Efficient Driver Training alongside refresher courses and learner driving lessons. We are ORDIT registered to provide Driving Instructor Training and are listed on the DVSA's register of Fleet Trainers so we can help you with your business needs.
More details are available on our website www.nickheathdrivertraining.org.uk
