The Kier Foundation
Persuading professional drivers that hands-free phones are as dangerous as hand-held phone calls
Amount awarded
£29,839
Completed
2024
Making roads safer for…
All road users
Project summary
A video resource, grounded in behavioural change theory, has been developed to help reduce the use of hands-free phones by professional drivers, by debunking the myth that it is safer than using a hand-held device.
The resource was developed and produced by the Kier Group, Kier Foundation, Nottingham Trent University and Esitu Solutions and has been rolled out by the Kier Group to its staff. The project was funded by The Road Safety Trust and the video resource is available for organisations to use, free of charge.
Simply share the video below – or access via YouTube.
Despite being legal, research studies have demonstrated that hands-free calls can be just as distracting as hand-held calls while driving.
As a result, an increasing number of companies are bringing in policies to ban both hand-held and hands-free calls while driving for work - but face an uphill task in convincing drivers to adhere to such policy.
The project used a survey of over 400 fleet drivers and a focus group of experts to identify current ‘myths’ that people who drive for work rely on to justify hands-free use while driving, and to then create a road safety video that debunks them.
The myths were:
Hands-free is legal, so it must be safe
Driving is ‘dead time’
Hands-free is safe because your eyes are on the road and hands are on the wheel
Hands-free is no different to talking to a passenger
I need to use hands-free communication for work
The resultant video, was evaluated in a study that compared mobile phone use, and attitudes towards mobile phone use (both hand-held and hands-free), for a group of drivers who watched the video and a control group who watched a road safety video unrelated to phone use.
Analysis demonstrated clear improvements in safety-related attitudes regarding mobile phone use while driving in the intervention group compared to the control group.
When asked directly whether the myth-busting video had changed their understanding of the dangers of mobile phones, 95% said that their knowledge of the dangers of mobile phone use had increased, while 80% said that they would limit or completely avoid hands-free mobile phone use while driving in the future.