Unfair for drivers, impossible for us
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'WRITE REGARDING the article in Commercial Motor on the ECJ ruling on drivers' responsibilities for their loads (18 March).
I'm the fiancée of Paul Watson, one of the many British truck drivers being held in France without charge. Not only does this article and the ruling affect my personal life as Paul is in a no-win situation, but also because I work for an import/export company which supplies most countries in Europe using road freight.
I have shown this article to my directors and it has raised grave concerns on how we as a company can now successfully trade and ship our goods into Europe.
In no circumstances would we allow a driver to open boxes or pallets containing our goods to check them.This would take too much of their time, given the volumes we ship.Also, who would we pursue for compensation if our goods arrived at their destination with shortages or damaged goods? To give you an example of the problem, we also ship goods worldwide and for some shipments we have to have SGS or Cotectna inspections for Customs purposes. Not even these inspectors have the time to inspect every single carton on a container (even a 20ft container) — they usually just take the odd box picked at
random and check the contents.
So how can a driver, already under huge time pressure possibly inspect all his load? What's more as most of our road freight into Europe is transported as groupage, our loads may end up on two or three vehicles before they arrive.., does this mean that every driver on the route should inspect their load? If this is how truck drivers are being treated, should this ruling not also take under its wing airline pilots, sea captains, train drivers, coach drivers and postmen? Sarah Wilson Company accountant Trent International