A new survey purports to show an increase in the number of companies that require their employees to abstain from using cell phones while behind the wheel of a vehicle.
The survey comes courtesy of ZoomSafer, who polled 900 persons involved with transportation or vehicle fleet matters. What they found was that 80% of commercial fleet operators have put in place written policies prohibiting the practice of driving while on a cell phone, a marked increase of 29% from the previous year. In addition, 86% claim to enforce these policies, which is 62% higher than the number who claimed the same thing last year.
That’s not to say that there aren’t still lingering doubts about safety. Although enforcement policies seem to be on the rise, relatively few believe that these methods of enforcement actually work the way they’re supposed to. About 26%, barely a quarter of respondents, rated themselves as “very confident” that they’re policies work to change a driver’s habits.
So why the change in attitude on the subject? ZoomSafer gives possible credit to the establishment of a new rule adopted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that prohibits the use of handheld phones while driving for bus and truck drivers. A spokesperson also says that their findings show a rising interest in technologies that can monitor compliance, with 80% of people polled saying that such monitoring is more important than tracking practices like speeding or braking too hard.