Inspired by Chris Kilbourne’s excellent Safety Daily Advisor mini-series on companies who are taking the bull by the horns and implementing distracted driving policies to enhance safety and reduce risk, earlier this month I wrote about the first company he profiled – KCI Technologies. Now, let’s take a look at efforts from a very well-known company that has also made a strong effort to prevent employee distracted driving due to cell phone use – Sunoco.

According to the company’s 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report, Sunoco has had its “Restricted Use of Wireless Devices” policy in place since 2006 - meaning for the past six years, the company has prohibited its employees from using any wireless device while they’re driving on-the-job. That’s way ahead of the game; in 2010, 26% of Sunoco’s fellow NETS member companies did not have cell phone policies in place (and in 2009, a larger National Safety Council survey found that 42% of companies didn’t have a policy).

So what was the catalyst that drove this multi-national company to identify employee cell phone use as a major issue it had to tackle immediately? Interviewing Sunoco Senior Safety Specialist Bill Sanicky, Kilbourne reveals it was all because of a TV show: one weekend, a senior VP watched a program on distracted driving and “On Monday we were instructed to put together a policy to get rid of cell phones.”

Kilbourne reports that there was some push back from Sunoco’s employees, especially salespeople concerned about not being able to make and take calls on the road, but the company maintained that a fully prohibitive policy was best for it – in addition to cell phone use, Sunoco also “bans putting in CDs, changing the radio, or typing into a GPS.”

Sanicky, who represented his company and NETS at last year’s second National Distracted Driving Summit, simply defines the company’s policy: “While you’re driving, you’re a driver, and all your attention needs to be on that aspect of your job.”

So kudos to Sunoco for their early recognition of distracted driving as a serious on-the-job hazard. But one very importation question is left unanswered by Kilbourne’s article:

How is Sunoco enforcing its restrictive, safety-focused policy? That’s what I’d really like to know.