Messaging & Collaboration - CIOInsight
Home arrow Messaging & Collaboration arrow Texting While Driving: The Real Mobility Risk

Messaging & Collaboration Slideshow:
Texting While Driving: The Real Mobility Risk

By Don Reisinger on 2011-03-23


We already know you're worried about your mobile workers, particularly when it comes to managing them, their devices, and the information they're accessing at large. Here's another cause for concern: Your road warriors may very well be actively chatting or texting while driving. Employees who use their mobile devices while driving are a massive risk for companies. A recent study finds that the effects of texting while driving are worse than driving drunk. If an employee during work hours gets into an accident or, worse, hurts themselves or someone else because they're texting while driving, your company could potentially be at risk. Realizing that, we thought it would be a good time to give you a look at the latest research on the dangers of text messaging and mobile phone use while driving, as well as the latest on state rules and regulations.

LATEST STORIES

BLOGS
 
  • of
More than one third of U.S. smartphone owners compose at least one text message while driving each day, according to the Strategy Analytics Consumer Insights report.

Strategy Analytics Consumer Insights research finds that 40 percent of drivers in the U.S. read at least one text message behind the wheel each day.

One-quarter of U.S. smartphone owners read e-mails while they drive each and every day, according to the Strategy Analytics Consumer Insights survey.

Even worse, 40 percent of drivers draft an e-mail while they’re driving each day, according to Strategy Analytics

The U.S. National Safety Council said that approximately 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies ban cell phone use while driving for all employees. Moreover, those policies have been in place for more than two years at many firms.

In 2009, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that those who send text messages while driving are a whopping 23 times more likely to be in a crash than those who are placing all their attention on the road.

A 2009 study conducted by Car and Driver magazine found that when traveling at 70 miles per hour, the average drunk driver took an extra four feet to bring a car to a halt, compared to their normal stopping range. Those who were text-messaging required an additional 70 feet.

Those Fortune 500 companies that instituted a company-wide ban on texting while driving saw a 22 percent reduction in crash rates and a 22 percent decline in property damage, according to the National Safety Council.

The Governors Highway Safety Association says 30 states and Washington, D.C. ban text messaging while driving. California, Connecticut, and New York, among several other states, ban drivers from holding mobile phones while driving.

According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which aggregates police reports from around the U.S., 20 percent of all injury crashes involved distracted driving due to use of electronics in the car.

According to the Department of Transportation, 800,000 vehicles are being driven every day by someone using a hand held mobile phone. Are your employees among them?

  • More slideshows

FEATURED SPONSORED VIDEOS

FEATURED SPONSORED ARTICLES

Erasable E-Paper Saves Trees, Cuts Costs

Why Smart Companies Should Adopt the Lessons of Gaming

Interest in Mobile WiFi Hotspots Fuels New Solutions

A Closer Look at Public Cloud Security

View More Articles

  Brought to You By
Click Here



 

Advertisement

Sponsored Links
  • Try Windows Azure free for 90 days

  • Introducing the world's first family of systems with integrated expertise

  • FREE Securing Smartphones & Tablets for Dummies Book from Sophos
  • 77% of the Fortune 500 Manage Content Securely with Box.
  • Leverage your virtual computing environment with Dell.
  • Build an IT Infrastructure That Delivers the Future
  • 5 New Technologies That Will Change Enterprise ITAdvertisement
  • eWEEK Quick LInks

     
    Close this advertisement