Haulage Jobs and the Cab Focus Debate

Mobile communications are now an established if not essential part of haulage jobs.The days when drivers disappeared ‘off the radar’ for hours because they couldn’t find a working payphone are now the stuff of haulage industry legend. It’s really only some of the old-timers (i.e. people over about 40) who can remember them.

Safety

However, as everyone should now know, the availability of portable phones that started in the 1980s brought with it some safety challenges. There’s no point in labouring those, as everyone has seen drivers (private and professional) behaving highly irresponsibly, not to mention illegally, by trying to drive with one hand while talking into a mobile phone with the other. The law quickly made that illegal and few working hard on haulage jobs would question the sense in that.

Legal position

Let’s quickly review the legal position as it stands at the time of writing:

• the law prohibits the use of a hand-held phone when you’re driving – even if you’re stationery at say traffic lights;• there is no similar restriction on the use of two-way radios, satnavs, hands-free telephones, cigarette lighters, music systems and so on.

In some ways this looks contradictory and illogical. Why it’s considered safe to sit behind the wheel while tapping away in a satnav or frantically searching for your cigarettes, yet not while not talking on a hand-held phone isn’t quite clear - but the law often contains such inconsistencies. The growth of restrictions

There is, however, an increasingly vociferous campaign to further restrict driver behaviours, which is gathering momentum and increasing in scope. The new proposition is that the use of hands-free phones should be banned.

The logic of the campaigners appears to be broadly summarised under three headings:

• hands-free conversations over a phone are distracting and therefore dangerous;
• drivers shouldn’t be doing anything other than driving;
• it’s about time something else was made illegal and we haven’t been able to think of anything apart from this.

Now it’s true there’s a note of cynicism there. Perhaps some studies show, objectively, that there’s a case to answer; but if hands-free phones are banned, the already-existing inconsistencies in the law might appear even sillier to those carrying out haulage jobs and private motorists alike.

Where is the logic?

Where is the study that shows hands-free conversations are more of a distraction than speaking with passengers? Should passengers be banned? Perhaps radios and music players are far too distracting also – after all drivers should be driving and not humming or singing as they go. So, let’s ban in-cab entertainment too.

Thinking about it, satnavs and smoking also need to go. While we’re at it, pleasant countryside might be considered to constitute ‘a distracting view’ so maybe we need to erect screens along the whole length of our road systems to make sure it’s blocked safely out of drivers’ sight.

The latest proposals might appear to be the triumph of crusading zeal over reason and people involved in haulage jobs might be inclined to start saying that enough is enough.

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the world's largest neutral trading hub for same day haulage jobs in the express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe 'wholesale' environment.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.