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Don’t quite trust your employees to put their cell away while driving?
Two local companies have come up with a way of tracking whether employees are taking now-illegal calls on the road.
“You can tell your employees they can’t use their phone while driving but there really isn’t a way to enforce it,” said Sarah Morton, the CEO of IT company Backbone System.
Backbone Systems and Aegis Mobility are offering six-month pilot trials of DriveAssist, software that gives companies readouts of phone and text use on company Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices that can be compared to when workers are on the road.
Aegis is also in the process of developing the next phase of DriveAssist that actually blocks drivers from taking calls or diverts it automatically to a safer option.
Much of the technology has been driven by legislation and lawsuits from the U.S., but Morton said B.C. demand is starting to rise since the province introduced its hands-free legislation.
“A lot of companies are still trying to figure out the legislation and see what happens,” said Morton. “It’s a real concern, especially for companies managing a fleet.”
The province’s legislation banning phone calls and texts while driving – unless it’s with a hands-free device – went into effect Jan. 1, but police won’t begin enforcing it until Feb. 1.