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Duty of care
Page 36
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The CM operators' panel believes hauliers
should take the new Corporate Manslaughter Bill very seriously. Its members have been
telling Pat Hagan where the dangers lie.
Corporate manslaughter is unlikely to be your average operator's first concern when he wakes up in the morning — that honour probably goes to more mundane issues such as fuel costs, haulage rates and driver recruitment.
But many operators privately admit the prospect, however slim, of facing a criminal charge that they caused someone's death scares the pants off them.
Government plans to introduce a Corporate Manslaughter Bill next year can only heighten those fears. Under current legislation a company can be prosecuted only if lawyers can identify a "controlling mind": the individual within the organisation who is personally guilty of manslaughter. It's the difficulty in pinpointing such a person that is often blamed for what some see as the low number of successful prosecutions in Britain.
Under the new legislation, a company will be guilty of the offence if the cause of death can be linked to the way in which senior managers organise or manage any of its activities. As a result the legislation is likely to lead to more successful prosecutions.
But the overall numbers will still be small and penalties will take the form of unlimited fines, rather than jail sentences.
So how concerned should operators be — and what can they do now to minimise the risks of facing a criminal charge?
To find out we spoke to members of CM's operator panel — a team of hauliers, ownerdrivers and trainers who have agreed to provide feedback on how the industry copes with change.