The Danish politicians are looking into increasing the punishment for driving and texting.
The politicians hesitate and have not decided on what to do yet as any new expense for the industry will mean lost jobs. Forcing the firms to invest in hands free equipment could very well the factor which could prevent Denmark from recover from the financial crisis.
It would be difficult to find employees who want to work at all if they are cut off from their teams and social network during work hours. The overall performance in the firms will suffer.
We have been contacted by a number of former Danish employees who used to work in the United Kingdom. They have returned home because they have lost fate in a future in this country. Over there the punishment for driving and texting is very severe. We are talking cruel punishments which you should not expect to find in any civilized countries.
A Hotel manager - Kiera Coultas - got 4 years in prison just for receiving a text message minutes before hitting a cyclist who broke every traffic law possible. He jumped a red light and was by doing that a simple criminal.
Of course it doesn't give anybody the right to kill him but traffic laws are not invented for fun. He actions did however increase the chance for tragedy with 90%. Lights are placed in crossing because to improve traffic safety.
But because her phone was on, it led the jury to believe that she was in the process of replying to the message she received, and she got very severe sentence that will cripple for life for good. May she find comfort in the granddaughters her child will get because she will miss out too much of the childhood of her own child in order to truly say that she was a part of it.
It is an unfair sentence and people should not visit the United Kingdom by car or choosing to work in this country. When you are a foreigner you are double as exposed to the burden of the law. A Danish soccer player was even convicted for being colleague to a person who was involved in a minor traffic accident without deaths. We will make a blog entry on the injustice Mads Timm was exposed to later.
But back to Denmark and the possible toughen of our laws. Will they shot our industry down or will they give the industry time to outsource transport entirely to low-paid drivers from Eastern Europe. They are cheap and expendable. They are used in huge numbers already and are responsible for a large number of the accidents where Lorries are involved.
But are there drivers enough to take care of the rest of the driving needed to keep the country going?
This question is too hard to answer and the risk of being stuck in the financial crisis is too big. So the politicians should leave the use of mobile phones in cars alone.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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