Since 2013 there have been a number of successful prosecutions of companies and individual directors following death caused by internal systematic failures. These prosecutions have far reaching affects on the road transport industry as highlighted in the Bristol Crown Court case relating to the Bath tipper disaster where four members of the public lost their lives. What is now clear is that key individuals will face lengthy prison sentences where they have failed to oversee vital systems and procedures within their organisations.

UK Law requires directors, no matter how large the company, to play an active role in monitoring the compliance of the transport operation as opposed to simply delegating this to Transport and Senior Managers.

A number of years ago we developed our own Corporate Manslaughter Health Check Product designed specifically for lorry and bus operators, aimed at fully scrutinising the effectiveness of internal transport compliance systems and ensuring Directors can demonstrate that they actively supervise and scrutinise the performance of these systems. Our Corporate Manslaughter Health Check Product is designed to promote efficiency but also to seek to minimise the risk of prosecution to the Company and the individual Directors should a serious incident occur within the transport operation.

We offer prompt and effective legal support and representation to

• Attend in house to scrutinise your systems and advise on any required improvements
• Provide vital in-house training to Directors to highlight their responsibilities to supervise and scrutinise the performance of their transport operation
• Advise on the content and implementation of  a simplistic monthly produced KPI  document on 'road transport compliance' to enable Directors to have vital compliance indicators at their finger tips
• Provide support to  transport operators when a serious failure or incident may occur.

Case Studies

A. Working with a large plant and crane hire client in the South West carrying out a Health check with the very clear instruction from the client directors that they wanted the transport compliance systems to be scrutinised and improved to the required standard so that they could go to sleep at night confident that they were doing their best in law to discharge their responsibilities and that as far as possible their operation was not a danger to the public. Spending time in-house assessing the human resources structure as well as the paper systems in place and advising on a set of very achievable rehabilitation measures which I deemed would be acceptable in law.  Thereafter attending periodically to audit to be an external set of eyes and ears for the directors, resulting in them also being able to show that they had a system for external quality assurance of their transport operation.

B. Health checking a construction client and identifying that the methods used to test and thereafter record vital vehicle and trailer brake tests were wholly unsatisfactory. The position hugely exposed the company and directors to risk and questioned the safety of the vehicles in use. Implementing an immediate system to re-train in house mechanics and external workshops on the correct procedure and setting up and forward planning a clear plan for effective testing of the brakes utilising internal and external resources. Also recommending improvements to the out of date vehicle inspection and defect reporting sheets in use. 

C. Following a Health check of a large foodstuffs client, identifying that the senior directors played too little a role on a day to day basis in actually monitoring the road transport compliance. Acknowledging that these key individuals were very commercially placed and setting up a simplistic set of internal systems to enable them to receive key operational transport compliance information and to attend specific transport meetings on a regular basis. Educating very busy directors that despite their own commercial expertise that they were nether the less 'transport people' too and had to have a very specific involvement. 

D. Health checking a media and entertainment client with a large fleet of lorries also faced with the recent retirement of its long-standing transport manager. Implementing a programme to bring systems and paperwork up to the modern day standard as required in law. Attending Board meetings to ensure that directors could prove that road transport compliance was sufficiently considered and recorded by them. Advising on a change to the current in-house human resources structure. Creating an environment where certain directors thereafter played a very active role in directly managing their new transport managers.

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