Freight Emergency

Last June the law surrounding Cabotage changed and Uk companies were allowed to use drivers returning to European companies to deliver their goods. A lot of industry people thought that was a good thing, myself included until I started examining the laws regarding corporate manslaughter act.

Looking at in in more detail and reading and referring to an article on the Road Transport website, has left me in doubt that it’s not a good thing.

Do you really save money? What happens in the event of an accident? Who is liable if a foreign driver subcontracting for you has breached the law?

Subbing out work under cabotage rules can save on your costs, but who pays up if the foreign vehicle is not roadworthy or an accident occurs? Operators using cabotage rules to offload work on to foreign hauliers and save money are being warned they are setting themselves up for “astronomical” liability costs, unless they do their homework first. The rise in online freight exchanges for companies wanting to reduce empty running and subcontract work to minimise costs, coupled with escalating fuel prices, means using continental hauliers is seen as making good business sense.

But transport lawyers say it is so difficult to bring foreign-based haulage companies before a UK court if they are involved in an accident while working on your behalf and it is very likely your customer will pursue you instead. And alarmingly, due to a legislative loophole, foreign companies remain outside of the scope of the Corporate Manslaughter Act. This means that if they are involved in a death on UK roads, you could find yourself facing manslaughter charges. Hauliers carrying out cabotage journeys in this country operate under the conditions of carriage used by the UK operator, which often are the Road Haulage Association’s own guidelines. This limits liability of the haulier to any claim made against it and prevents it having to pay out excessive amounts of money to the customer in the event of an accident.

Obviously due diligence needs to be proved, and before subbing out work to a returning driving you should vet the company in question.  The Haulier who agrees the job with the customer is liable and not a haulier in another country who is a third party sub contractor.

It may be cheap in the short term, but the long term costs of not completing your vetting etc will put you out of business. You cannot claim limited liability if you do not have a system for checking those liabilities.

What can you do to limit you liabilities?

• Vet your subcontractors

• Check their references

• What’s their reputation in the industry like?

• Do they have a high turnover of drivers? -  a sure sign that the staff are not happy and the remainder of the team are making up the shortfall.

• Keep accurate records that you have done this.

It may take a bit of time, but it could save your business one day.

Sarah

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Freight Emergency doesn’t just work for Lorry spills that need trans-shipping. It is also a service that can be utilised by couriers and freight forwarders, in fact any business that is moving goods across the UK may find it beneficial to have our number.

0844 884 3331

You never know when you may get in trouble and we are here to help. If you are involved in an acident and cannot move your freight to it’s destination then give us a call. If the acident is not your fault it may even be possible to recover what we cost via the other persons insurance - speak to you insurers to find out if you can do this.

Sarah

For when your delivery must take place

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Every day there are 12,000 lorries with foreign drivers, and around 95,000 lorries with English drivers.

That’s a lot of lorries. A lot of accidents take place too.

Lorry Accident

400 people are year are killed in accidents with lorries, more care needs to be taken to make our roads safer. In particular when it comes to foreign drivers.

The number of crashes caused by all types of foreign vehicle has increased by 47 per cent in the past five years.

The number of crashes involving Polish drivers has grown almost tenfold, from 361 in 2001 to 3,132 last year. The highest percentage increase was in crashes involving Lithuanian drivers, from 1 in 2001 to 745 in 2006.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article2866091.ece

Is it solely the lorry drivers fault when driving in the UK? Do driving hours make is safer for all of us on the road?

Kevin

Rescuing your freight when you’re unable to.

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