CHAIN REACTION
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• Just exactly where does the buck stop? In this week's issue of Commercial Motor we are carrying two stories about hauliers getting hammered for something they haven't done. The first, on page 54, concerns the endless battle over due diligence. The Road Haulage Association wants to see the law on overloading changed to include an offence of consignor liability. After all, why should an operator, acting in good faith and taking all possible steps to prevent overloading, take the fall when a consignor makes a mistake over the weight of its goods ...wittingly or otherwise?
The second story, on pages 4-5 is an altogether more serious matter. As we closed for press on Tuesday, 25-year-old British driver Paul Ashwell was in a Greek jail, having been caught up in the so-called "Doomsday Gun" affair.
Ashwell is innocent. Not only does he say so, but Davies Turner, the freight forwarder (who in its own words has "acted in good faith throughout") says so. Even Foreign Office Minister William Waldegrave says so. So why is he still being held? Could it be simply because he was the last link in the chain of events and was unlucky enough to be driving the truck that carried a length of steel piping that experts claim was intended for use as a giant gun? Ashwell's MP, Michael Morris, seems to have come up with the most sensible comment so far: "Why is it, given the furore surrounding this particular case, that the load could not just have been taken over by the Customs and Excise in Greece?" Why indeed?
MCI, the specialist transport company which hired Ashwell to shift the offending steel tube, has no doubts that "the parties involved — Davies Turner, MCL and Paul Ashwell — are completely innocent victims".
The "Doomsday Gun" affair has thrown the whole matter of haulier liability into sharp relief. The potential problems effect everyone, whether they are hauling a length of steel pipe or a load of bricks. There is only so much you can do to stay inside the law. Given the facts available, sometimes you just have to assume that what you've been hired to do is legal. It's nothing to do with naivety. It's simply a matter of realism.
Philip Stephenson is joint managing director of Davies Turner which, together with MCI, is pressing representatives on the spot for an early release of the trucks and personnel. He says: "This whole affair is an unfortunate example of how innocent parties can be caught up in an event beyond their control."
To misuse the old saying, if the cap doesn't fit, don't force it.