Both Rubs and The Courier Shop are compiling names of transport professionals to follow on twitter.
Transport is very competitive and often very collaborative, so it’s a good idea to follow people in the same industry. Not only can you find the most up to date transport related news, but if you cannot cover a piece of work you have a source of potential sub contractors.
If transport related followers are just what you are looking for, why don’t you pop over and have a look and add a comment with your details.
In the next few days, The Courier Shop will be launching their twitter for couriers and other transport professionals ebook, so if that is of interest to you, why not bookmark the page and come back to it?
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.
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.
A lorry transporting crates of canned beer for Fosters, bent in half around a Newbury a roundabout
Spilled load
In this instance, the lorry could not continue to transport the goods, and the company didn’t have a spare lorry to collect the load, and what was on the road.
It shut down that section of the road for 4 and a half hours. Calling Freight Emergency could have made all the difference, a small team help remove the cans from across the road and a team of sprinters and 7.5 tonne lorries to take the goods back to the depot.
In the case of no fault accidents, the cost is fully recoverable.
Give us a call on 0844 884 3331 or out of hours on 07816 528421
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