Warning Labels

Do you ever pay attention to the warning labels on your mattress, threatening you with prosecution in the event you remove the tag?  How about the warning sign posted in men’s restrooms in restaurants and pubs alerting one to the dangers of fetal alcohol syndrome (I never quite understood the placement)?

Of course there are the warning labels on certain types of over the counter medications, advising you not to operate heavy machinery or driving?

There are warning labels all around us, some for reasons that are valid and self evident, others not so much.

Ray LaHood wants a warning label on cell phones.   At the second conference the Secretary of Transportation has held in his tenure related to distracted driving yesterday, Sec. LaHood essentially declared cell phones and their use in vehicles to be an “epidemic” and he suggested cell phone companies implement a warning label system advising users that it is dangerous to drive and use cell phones.

The scary part is, he is right and unfortunately, we need to the government to point this out to us.   We often complain about government interference in our personal lives, yet we will not hang up a cell phone or we feel we have to text or respond instantly and we endanger the lives of others by doing so. Over 5,000 people lost their lives last year in accidents directly related to distracted driving and close to 500,000 people suffered injury.   Mr. LaHood is correct in calling this an epidemic.

My boss will not talk to me when I am using a cell phone and driving.   What is your employers policy related to distracted driving?   What are you doing as an employer?  Do you have a warning label?

Secretary LaHood is calling for private companies to ban the use of cell phones and texting by their employees who drive for their company.   Further, he was been very critical of organizations that are bringing in even more technology into the vehicle.   Updating Facebook via a console in your car while driving cannot realistically serve some higher purpose and facing the prospect of doing damage to your car or your person to tweet, cannot be good.

DefensiveDriving.com can help organizations develop a corporate driver training program and we encourage the proactive adoption of organizational cell phone driving policies.   We really should not require warning labels.  Please visit DefensiveDriving.com for more information about why you should use our company driver training.