If there's one offence sure to cost a truck driver
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his job ifs drink-driving. No union and no tribunal would dream of defending someone who drives while under the influence.
Word reaches Backfire of an office receptionist who drank far more than was good for her at a Christmas party (paid for, incidentally, by her employers). As always happens at Commercial Motor functions. a hard core then adjourned to a bar to kill a few more brain cells.
But, unlike CM staffers, receptionist Linda Hunt then insisted on driving home, ignoring the pleas of her workmates and her boss, who even offered to arrange a rift home.
The inevitable happened; Hunt ran her car into a pickup and was left with a broken pelvis, a broken neck and brain damage. A sad case which, in this country, would have simply been another reminder of the evils of drink-driving.
But this was on the far side of the pond, where they do things differently.
She sued her boss for failing to physically restrain her or call the police, and won £150,000, Typical American lunacy? No, this was in Canada, where the head of a law school said: "The Canadian legal system is one of the closest to British law...the time is right in Britain for this."
British truck driver arrested for drink-drMng, sues haulier for failing to drag him out of the pub, gets job back and wins substantial damages...no, somehow we can't see it.