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American Morning
Dialing And Driving Don't Mix
Aired September 07, 2001 - 10:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Hang up and drive. You've heard the phrase, more and more cell phone users are. Recent studies indicate that dialing and driving can not only be distracting, it can be dangerous.
Still some people, particularly business people, say hanging up is awfully hard to do.
Phil Keating of CNN affiliate KDVR explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rocky Mountain Auto Works, can I help you?
PHIL KEATING, KDVR-REPORTER (voice-over): Kurt Locasela (ph) drives from call to call with one hand on the wheel, and one phone on the hand. Just a fact of his modern day job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can, we could go right to your location.
KEATING: But his two handed driving performance is inherently dangerous. A "New England Journal of Medicine" study shows if you are phoning and driving, you are four times more likely to get in a wreck, and often Locasela senses that safety risk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got to get off the phone, and pull over, and talk to him that way. It's too dangerous.
KEATING: With six vans in the fleet, company owner Kevin Steltzer (ph) does worry.
KEVIN STELTZER, OWNER, ROCKY MOUNTAIN AUTO WORKS: I am very concerned about it. I have instructed all of my guy, if they can, to pull over when they receive a call from their cell phone. I try to do the same myself. Sometimes it can not be helped.
KEATING (on camera): The new cell phone reality is: Employers have to be concerned. Right now a Virginia law firm is being sued for $30 million, after one of its attorneys hit and killed another driver while doing company business, talking on the cell phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Businesses need to take it one step further. They are the need deep pocket. If they face a lawsuit, if they don't tell their employees what they should be doing, how they should be doing it, when they're using a cell phone during that workday.
KEATING: Steltzer just hopes he never has to deal with such a situation.
STELTZER: Unfortunately, cell phones are necessary evil. You have to have them
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: But do employees have to use cell phones while they're behind the wheel? And if a worker has an accident, should the employer pay the price?
Three guests join us now to talk about that issue. Jonathan Segal is an employment attorney, Susan Meisinger is executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Society for Human Resource Management; and you should know this guy by now, Roger Cossack is our legal analyst.
Good to seeing all of you. Thanks for coming in today.
John, why don't we begin with you. How likely is it that someone could actually sue a company or an employer for something that is done while someone else, an employee, is using a cell phone given by that company?
JONATHAN SEGAL, EMPLOYMENT ATTORNEY: I think employers these days get sued for almost everything. So, I think with the increased consciousness, with regard to the potential risks involved in driving and talking, lawsuits become a greater possibility.
I don't think that employers can necessarily avoid the claims, but I think there are reasonable steps that employers can do to minimize the risk by imposing reasonable restrictions on cell phone use to balance the business and the safety considerations.
HARRIS: Now you say reasonable. What's reasonable?
SEGAL: Well, I think what New York did is a step in perhaps the right direction. The notion for an employer on their own to require, whenever possible, hands free, rather than hands held. And I think if employers used hands free rather than hands held, that will minimize some of the risks in these cases.
HARRIS: Yes, but the stat, the numbers really haven't been that clear about whether there's that big of a difference between hands free and hand held, from what I've seen at least, here in the different interviews I've conducted.
Susan, let me ask you a question about that. Getting back to what's reasonable here for a company. Let me ask you the same question: In your mind is it possible that someone could succeed in suing an employer; and is it likely, or is it even reasonable or realistic, I should say, that an employer would actually tell one of their employees to not use the phone or not answer the phone when a customer calls, and they happen to be in the car?
