Texting While Driving is Becoming a Big Business Concern

More and more states have laws banning texting while driving for all drivers. Currently, 35 states have such laws, and many also include a ban on cell phone use.  The US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently announced the final rule prohibiting interstate truck and bus drivers from using hand-held cell phones while operating their vehicles.  Civil penalties will result for violators.

Further, OSHA’s Dr. David Michaels stated in his October 20, 2011 blog:

“Companies are in violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act if, by policy or practice, they require texting while driving, or create incentives that encourage or condone it, or they structure work so that texting is a practical necessity for workers to carry out their job.” He went on to say: “When OSHA receives a credible complaint that an employer requires texting while driving or who organizes work so that texting is a practical necessity, we will investigate and where necessary issue citations and penalties to end this practice.”

How Does This Apply to My Business?

You may ask: ‘Why all of the fuss about texting and why is this important to me and my business?”  According to an OSHA flyer on distracted driving, the statistics speak for themselves:

• Texting while driving claimed more than 16,000 lives from 2001 to 2007.
• Drivers who are texting take their eyes off the road 400% more than when they are not texting.
• Texting leads to more crashes.  With each additional 1 million text messages, fatalities from distracted driving rose more than 75%.
• Texting is becoming one of the primary forms of communication, so accidents and injuries are on the rise.

Employers face increased worker compensation costs and tort claims by employees injured or who caused accidents when texting while driving.  Even though many of the texts may be created when an employee is not officially on working time, the reasons for the texts were for business and are decided to fall under the work comp umbrella.

How Can You Protect Yourself?

Proactive businesses should develop a strong policy prohibiting texting while driving. The policy should be implemented with full support of all management, and employees should be trained and educated on the policy’s application.  Many companies require their employees to sign an acknowledgement of receipt of the policy.  Lastly, the company must strictly and uniformly enforce their policy including necessary disciplinary action for any employee, including a management level person, who violates it.  A sample policy may be viewed here and adapted for your use.

Every company should know the laws regarding texting and cell phone use in their state(s).  Do you?  A complete listing of each state’s laws is available for you to check.  If your state doesn’t have a law banning texting while driving, it may soon.

Here are some other useful links for further information on distracted driving:
http://www.distraction.gov/
http://www.osha.gov/distracted-driving/initiative.html

US Department of Labor’s OSHA cites Miami companies with willful and serious safety violations after fatality at Bernuth Marine Terminal.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is proposing penalties against four Miami, Fla., companies for safety violations following a fatality at the Bernuth Marine Terminal.

In May, an investigation was initiated following notification to OSHA of a possible occupational death when a longshoreman was missing for two days. The employee of Miami Stevedoring Services (MSS) apparently fell overboard from the top of a container that was onboard a cargo vessel.

Miami Stevedoring is receiving willful citations related to the fatality for exposing workers to fall hazards while working from the ship’s intermodal containers and failing to provide workers with personal floatation devices while working onboard ships. The company is also receiving a willful citation for operating powered industrial trucks that had broken and missing equipment, along with two repeat, six serious, and one other-than-serious violation.

Inspections of the other three companies – Island Stevedoring LLC, Bernuth Agencies Inc. and Marine Diesel Inc. – were started during the fatality investigation based on violations observed by the OSHA compliance officer. Bernuth Agencies owns the marine terminal where MSS was contracted to provide stevedoring services. Marine Diesel provides equipment repair at the terminal. Island Stevedoring currently provides the stevedoring services, replacing MSS after the fatality.

Island Stevedoring is being cited with two willful and nine serious violations. Bernuth Agencies is being cited with four serious and one other-than-serious violation. Marine Diesel is receiving five serious violations.

“Working around containers is dangerous. However, it can be done safely if employees are provided the required equipment to perform their duties, and management enforces the OSHA standards,” said Darlene Fossum, OSHA’s area director in Fort Lauderdale. “The cost of human life is far too great a price to pay for anyone to ignore these hazards. All of us want to see working men and women go home safe at the end of every work shift.”

The agency is proposing $318,900 in penalties against the four companies. The penalties for Miami Stevedoring Services total $196,600; Island Stevedoring $90,000; Bernuth Agencies $24,800 and Marine Diesel $7,500.

The companies have 15 business days from receipt of the citations and proposed penalties to comply, request a conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The site was inspected by staff from OSHA’s Fort Lauderdale Area Office, 1000 South Pine Island Road, Suite 100; telephone 954-424-0242.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA’s role is to promote safe and healthful working conditions for America’s men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, outreach and education. For more information, visit:

http://www.osha.gov.

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For Immediate Release                                          Contact: Diane Hurns, 847-768-3413, dhurns@asse.org

Des Plaines, IL (December 18, 2008) — “Workplace safety processes must be in place at all times,” American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) President Warren K. Brown, CSP, ARM, CSHMM, of Fairborn, Ohio, said today. “They are even more critical during business downturns.”

Brown is referring to recent reports of some companies cutting safety processes hoping to reduce costs.

“If companies believe they will save money by reducing or ignoring safety for their workers, customers and communities they do business in, they are mistaken,” Brown said. “The ongoing positive results are in and have been for companies that have a strong safety culture and continually invest in and implement effective safety processes. Not only does their bottom line benefit positively, but their company reputation stays intact, employees stay safe and healthy reducing health care, workers comp, training and turnover costs not to mention keeping customers, the communities they do business in, vendors and employees happy. Safety is good business.”

Members of the 97-year-old ASSE — occupational safety, health and environmental professionals located worldwide — caution employers against cutting back on workplace safety in time of economic difficulty.President-Elect of the ASSE South Carolina Chapter Laura Comstock said, “Some safety related purchases and testing can be deferred, but other purchases, such as those for employee personal protective equipment (PPE) like hardhats, safety glasses and respirators, are critical to operations.”It is especially important for companies to show support for their employee safety during challenging economic times, she notes. “Employee morale may be low and employees may be carrying additional workloads, such as working additional hours or doing unfamiliar tasks due to cutbacks,” she notes. Comstock added, “In order to remain viable long-term, a company must maintain a solid safety process even through difficult times. The most successful companies in the long term also have the strongest safety performance.”“We realize these are tough times, but during economic down-turns, employers seeking to cut expenses may target variable operating costs such as travel, training and safety,” Brown said. “Money cut from safety processes now could have an enormous cost later; this can be from injury and health care costs, fines, lost production time, employee morale, or worst of all, employee injury or even death. There are better and smarter ways to protect the bottom line.”The South Carolina ASSE chapter suggests employees can also take measures to help companies save money such as by: following safe working procedures and practices to prevent injuries, related downtime and expenses such as costly fines; by properly using, cleaning and caring for protective equipment such as hardhats and respirators; reusing gloves whenever possible for as long as possible; and by keeping track of safety glasses and reusable hearing protection.

A steel worker in Crown Point Indiana was awarded $48 million in damages after he was injured at a northwestern Indiana steel mill four years ago.

Jurors determined half of the damages should be paid by a subcontractor working at the mill and the other half by his employer.  Read the article.