Landmark UK case turns focus on mobile use ban

Safety-focused businesses should ban employees from using all mobile phones while driving after a company director was believed to have become the first person in Britain to be convicted of careless driving over the use of a hands-free mobile phone.

The landmark court case has a significant impact for all businesses, as well as public sector fleets, says the UK's government-backed 'Driving for Better Business' campaign.

Although, only the use of a hand-held mobile phone while driving is against the law, best practice advice says that using a hands-free mobile phone is equally dangerous. Department for Transport research reveals that using a mobile behind the wheel makes drivers four times more likely to have a crash.

On February 20, Lynne-Marie Howden, 43, a director and head of sales at business consultancy company Insights, was found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving after crashing into another car on the A429 in Warwickshire in November 2007. The offence carried a possible jail sentence.

However, she was convicted on the lesser charge of careless driving and was banned from driving for 12 months and fined £2,000.

Warwick Crown Court had been told that the businesswoman, from Northamptonshire, had been involved in conversations on her hands-free mobile phone with her boyfriend and then a work colleague when driving her Mercedes CLK 220 at around 40 mph in a 60 mph speed limit she ploughed into an oncoming car on the opposite side of the road. The driver died at the scene of the crash.

Although it is legal to use a hands-free mobile phone, the prosecution claimed that the telephone calls distracted her enough to justify a death by dangerous driving charge.

In passing sentence in the case, Judge Richard Griffiths-Jones told Howden: "What happened to you in this case is a lesson to us all about the dangers of talking on the phone while we drive."

The 'Driving for Better Business' campaign is delivered by the RoadSafe organisation on behalf of the Department for Transport. Lawyer David Faithful, legal adviser to RoadSafe, said: "If a road crash occurs whether a person is using a hand-held or hands-free phone is irrelevant. The issue is whether the telephone conversation was sufficient to cause the driver to be distracted from concentrating on driving.

"I believe this is the first case where a conviction has been obtained as a result of a hands-free mobile phone conversation. The verdict sets a clear precedent and has a significant impact for the entire fleet industry and business community."