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- Truckers On The Offensive™ #002 - Social Media While Driving Is Out Of Control...
Truckers On The Offensive™ #002 - Social Media While Driving Is Out Of Control...
Is social media a part of your distracted driving policy and training?
The Plaintiff’s Attorney Attack
Social Media is the first place plaintiff’s attorneys are going to look after a crash. Unfortunately, there may be plenty of ammunition for them to utilize against your company there.
The plaintiff’s attorneys are not interested in one rogue driver who didn’t follow policy. They are going to stretch and reach to find a way to tie your company and management as the root cause of the crash. That you allowed and promoted the distracted behavior. Our job is to make that as hard as possible. They will still try, but let’s not make it easy on them.
What Can You Control?
Ensure that your distracted driving policy explicitly prohibits social media usage.
Have documented training on the dangers of social media use while driving and working. Educate drivers that the plaintiff’s attorney will subpoena their phone to be downloaded and analyzed as additional proof of them being distracted. You can find numerous cases of drivers going to prison for vehicular homicide due to distracted driving.
Train management that if they see social media usage while working it must be reported and addressed. Nothing could hurt your defense more than if someone on your management team follows a driver on social media who routinely posts videos of themselves while driving and does nothing. Worse than that, maybe they even like their posts…
The plaintiff’s attorneys will exploit that. They will get that manager in a deposition and it will not go well.
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