Explain the Risk of Noncompliance

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Explain the Risk of Noncompliance2014-snell-roy-speaking-headshot-200By Roy Snell
roy.snell@corporatecompliance.org

People don’t always understand some policies because we don’t adequately explain the risk of noncompliance.  “Don’t drink and drive” is easy to sell.  People understand the risk because there is so much education, monitoring, auditing, and discipline is clear.  We make our advice very clear… Do not drink and drive.  Distracted driving is much less clear.  The odd thing is that about 5,000 people die each year because of distracted driving and about 10,000 die because of drunk driving.  It seems to me that they are both equally important, but if I told you that you should put your phone in your glove box every time you drove, you would think that is overly compliant or onerous.

If you drive twice as many miles a day as a drunk driver, and occasionally distracted, you are as dangerous as a drunk driver.  Recently the point was driven home to me.  A family of five we know just died last week due to distracted driving. A semi plowed into the back of their van.  Also last week, a 22-year-old drove into the back of a car (pictured above), that car hit another car that my daughter was driving, and her car hit the car in front of her.  The guy was clearly driving at a high speed.  It’s pretty clear he was distracted.  In fact, he had a passenger who did not suggest he hit the brakes.  He was also clearly distracted.  My daughter was fine but it changed the way I deal with my phone.  I keep it in my pocket or put it on the seat next to me.  I don’t want to kill anyone.

“Never touch your phone in a car” is an onerous sounding piece of advice.  No one argues with “Don’t drink and drive” because they understand the risk.  Few listen to, “Don’t use your phone while driving,” because they don’t understand the risk.  We must not apologize for onerous sounding policies.  Having a policy is not enough. We must educate, audit, monitor, and discipline.  We need people to not only hear the rule, but clearly understand the risk of noncompliance.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Amen, Roy! I will not even speak to any employees from my organization if I know they are on their phone driving — I don’t want to distract them, nor live with the guilt if anything should happen.

    Your post is very timely — The Nonprofit Risk Management Center just yesterday released an issue of their “Risk Management Essentials” which is completely dedicated to transportation safety; you can download it at this link: http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/library/newsletter/rme.pdf

    (Full disclosure: I am on the NRMC Board.)

  2. Remember how common Public Service Announcements were years ago. I especially remember the campaign around “your brain on drugs” where it would show the egg frying in a hot skillet. Those were hugely effective and most people remember them decades later. Now you rarely see PSAs, especially if you just stream and don’t watch TV. Someone should figure out a way to drop them in to the electronic noise we subject ourselves to every day. Maybe a surprise PSA on a car accident while someone is texting would stop someone from doing the very same thing.

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