Telsis has chosen national Road Safety Week to partner with road safety charity Brake and to launch a new system that could enable fleet managers to enforce phone use policy and negotiate discounts with insurers by reducing the temptation for employees to text and talk on the phone while driving.

Texting and talking while driving claimed 23 lives and caused 74 serious injuries in the UK in 2011 and Brake is urging mobile operators in the UK to make it easier for phone users to avoid the temptation.

Telsis DriveSafe automatically lets callers and texters know someone is driving and will respond later when they can do so legally and safely. It works for all mobile phones, no matter what make, type or age, even if they are out of coverage or turned off. Crucially for fleet managers, DriveSafe generates an audit trail showing when it is turned on and off.

Texting has been found to make drivers 23 times more likely to cause a crash, potentially killing or maiming innocent road users. Yet this message clearly isn’t getting through to drivers - research conducted by Brake and Direct Line earlier this year revealed that nearly three in 10 drivers (28%) texts at the wheel and one in 13 (8%) do this at least once a week.

Paul Carvin, now a Brake volunteer says: “I ask all drivers to think about Zoe, and all the other lives needlessly lost on the road. Put your phone out of reach. It isn’t worth the risk.”

Sarah Fatica, general manager at Brake, says: “People who text at the wheel are taking enormous risks with their own and other people's lives. This kind of irresponsible behaviour is illegal and it kills so there should be no excuses. We would like to see UK mobile networks playing their part and looking seriously at technologies that could lessen the temptation so many of their customers feel to talk and text while driving. We are delighted to be working alongside Telsis to raise awareness about the dangers of talking and texting at the wheel, helping to reduce the number of people tragically killed and seriously injured on UK roads every year.”

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