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Wireless

by Mike Masnick

Sun, Aug 26th 2001 11:00pm





Companies Ban Employees From Using Mobile Phones In Cars

from the limited-liability dept

Some companies are changing their official corporate policies to tell their employees not to use cell phones while driving. Of course, rather than true safety concerns, this is really to limit their liability from lawsuits arising from cell-phone related accidents. Victims of such accidents smell cash by suing companies for having their workers using the cell phones for work purposes in their cars. I think the lawsuits sound a little sketchy - unless the companies made it clear that the employee needed to be working from the car, I find it hard to see how a company could be responsible. However, anything the promotes safer drivers wouldn't be such a bad thing.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Banning of Cell Phones

    identicon
    Calimus, Aug 26th, 2001 @ 11:16pm

    Personaly I agree. I've almost been killed numerous times by some jerk/jerkett ( can't leave out the ladies ) that can't seem to drive cause they have a cell phone shoved in their ear. The hands free set's are so cheap and could be saving ton's of lives/money. Worst thing I've seen so far is the owner of a new BMW (the one with the built in cell phone in the stearing wheel ) going down the interstate between two lanes with a cell phone to his head. You want to laugh till you almost see them take out a small mini-van with a load of kids in it.

    Please people, don't use the phone in the car unless it absolutly needed. Making a hair appointment doesn't count ( that goes for the guy's too ) and making sure that you're report on global warming doesn't either. It could be much safer for everyone if rather then buying that case of slimfast/power bars, if you would just pick up a small hands free set and set it up in your car.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Banning of Cell Phones

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 27th, 2001 @ 4:38am

    Check out the studies, hands free kits don't really help. Your attention is still diverted from the road.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    wired getting lazy...

    identicon
    todd, Aug 27th, 2001 @ 4:46am

    The same article appeared in the WSJ about 3 weeks ago. Can't access it since it is > 14 days, but same article, almost verbatim.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Banning of Cell Phones

    icon
    Mike (profile), Aug 27th, 2001 @ 8:41am

    Check out the studies, hands free kits don't really help. Your attention is still diverted from the road.

    Well... That's what one study said. And within a week of that another study came out suggesting completely different results. The second study used actual crash data, which might be more reliable... So, I wouldn't take it as a fact that hands free kits don't really help.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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