If you use your cellphone without a hands-free kit while driving, for phoning or texting, you are breaking the law, and if you cause an accident, the financial implications could be greater than you think.
As a driver, you must be in complete control of your vehicle, the South African National Road Traffic Act says. Grooming while behind the wheel or even chatting to a passenger compromises your ability to be in complete control. The Act doesn’t mention these behaviours specifically, but it does expressly forbid the use of a cellphone or similar electronic device while driving (the use of a hands-free kit is permitted). If you are caught by a traffic officer, you may be fined, and if you are in the Western Cape, you may also have your phone confiscated for 24 hours, according to a 2012 bylaw.
The danger of cellphone use, particularly texting, while driving has become a major concern worldwide – the issue came up at a recent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on road safety, according to a report by Reuters news agency. Texting while driving is a growing “global killer” and not enough attention is being paid to it, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the UN, told the assembly, adding that the problem “disproportionally affects young people”.
Arrive Alive, on its website, reports that a US study of truck drivers found that texting elevated the risk of a crash or near crash to more than 23 times higher than “non-distracted” driving, and it was by far the most risky cellphone activity you can engage in as a driver.
And in a 2014 report on the Discovery Insure Driver Challenge app, which helps users to improve their driving, Anton Ossip, the chief executive of Discovery Insure, said that alcohol, speeding and distracted driving are the three biggest causes of road accidents in South Africa, with cellphone use one of the top causes of driver distraction.
“It seems hardly believable that, despite legislation prohibiting it, two-thirds of drivers still use their cellphones while driving,” Ossip said.
Data collected from users of the app showed that a single instance of cellphone use represents 52 seconds of distracted driving, on average. At 60km/h, this is equivalent to driving “blind” for one kilometre, and makes you four times more likely to have an accident.
Gari Dombo, the managing director of Alexander Forbes Insurance, says cellphone use while driving reduces the brain’s capacity to react to external stimuli. He stresses the importance of not being distracted while driving by:
* Not answering calls;
* Not sending or reading text messages;
* Not eating or drinking;
* Avoiding being distracted by passengers; and
* Programming your GPS before starting your engine.
A traffic fine is small change com- pared with the financial implications of causing an accident by using a cellphone while driving.
Insurers have the right to repudiate claims in circumstances where you have failed to uphold your side of the contract. A good example is if you cause an accident while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which is a specific exclusion in most car insurance policies.
So could texting while driving, for example, be a valid reason for your insurer to repudiate your claim in the event of you crashing your car? This depends on how your policy is worded and whether such an act is regarded by your insurer as a traffic violation, which would not normally result in the repudiation of a claim, and an act of gross negligence, which would.
Personal Finance asked three insurers how they would deal with such a case:
* Dombo of Alexander Forbes Insurance says that if your insurer can prove that you were texting or talking on the phone while driving, it would be within its rights not to settle the claim.
“It’s important to underline that the onus is on the insurer to prove that you were indeed texting when the accident happened and thus were liable. The proximate cause of the accident (the cause having the most significant impact in bringing about the loss) would be the fact that your attention had been diverted. Equally, gross negligence would be applied, in that you failed to take due care while driving, which resulted in the accident happening,” Dombo says.
* Natasha Kawulesar, the head of client relations at Outsurance, says Outsurance would not reject such a claim. “Using a cellphone and driving is a traffic violation, and the client may be liable for a fine if caught. It is certainly negligent to use a cellphone while driving and we would advise our clients to rather use hands-free kits.
“An insurer may amend its policy to include this, especially if they regard the act as gross negligence. We do not have any plans to change our policy in this regard,” she says.
* Marius Neethling, the personal lines underwriting manager at Santam, says: “We would not repudiate the claim in this example, as negligence on the part of the driver is not an exclusion in our policies.
“We do not, however, dispute that texting while driving is a cause of accidents on our roads and are encouraged by legislation such as the Western Cape cellphone bylaw which has been put in place to discourage the practice,” he says.
So although your insurer may let you off the hook, it’s advisable not to put it to the test.
NO EARPHONES, PLEASE
In the traffic, it can be tempting to listen to music on earphones, but on its blog site, insurer MiWay says you should not, for the following reasons:
* You will struggle to hear hooters – whether you are about to make a dangerous move or another driver is warning you about something. As a result, your reaction time may be reduced, possibly resulting in an accident, MiWay says.
* You will struggle to hear sirens. It will be difficult for you to hear the sirens of approaching emergency vehicles and take corrective action. This goes for loud music blaring on a sound system, too.
* You will struggle to hear your own car. Your hearing can identify something wrong with your engine or with a tyre, MiWay says, before it turns into a bigger problem, possibly leading to an accident or leaving you stranded.