Death driver dismissal fair
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• Shell UK's dismissal of a tanker driver involved in a fatal accident has been held to be fair. The Leicester industrial tribunal heard that the company believed RJE Hesse was exceeding the speed limit when his tanker overturned on a bend of the A518 trunk road near Stafford, destroying a Renault car and killing the driver.
The tanker was wrecked and about 23,000 litres of the 32,900 litres of fuel on board was lost.
The tachograph was destroyed in the accident so the company investigated the incident by carrying out a test run over the accident route to de termine the maximum speed at which the bend could be negotiated. A firm of consultants concluded that the tanker was travelling at 88-96kmih (55-60mph) at the time of the accident.
Hesse had said he thought he had been travelling at 718knifh (30mph) and subsequently claimed that he had been forced to take evasive action by another vehicle cutting the corner.
The tribunal considered that the company had acted reasonably. Another driver who had turned a tanker over had not been dismissed, but that driver had no previous disciplinary warnings and the consequences had been nowhere near as catastrophic, it said.