Guilty of manslaughter? Why fleet managers need to control speeding
Sep
If you’re an employer it can be scary to stop and think about how responsible you are for your employees and their actions. In a lot of cases the law holds you and your company liable for any damages an employee causes.
For fleet managers, the risk a company is exposed to is far greater than staff who may be limited to working within an office. The chance of an employee being involved, or causing, an accident is much higher when a significant amount of their time is spent on the road.
What if a driver kills someone? Does your company share some of the blame? And how can GPS tracking help to minimize the risk?
Death – Could your company be guilty of manslaughter?
When an accident results in a death it becomes a lot more serious and the ramifications for your company and the driver are a lot more far-reaching. It is a well-known principle of law that an employer is responsible for the conduct of a worker in their charge, and any damage caused. If you’re explaining this to someone else you can sound like you know what you’re talking about by using the Latin phrase, respondeat superior, which describes this concept.
Even in cases where the driver is actually an independent contractor, it can sometimes be argued that you are partly liable.
In the U.K. legislation around corporate manslaughter is now in place, which recognizes that companies are required to demonstrate a duty of care not just to their employees but also the public. This means if a company failed to train and manage its drivers, and actively encourage safe driving practices it could be held liable by the courts for any deaths that result from employee driving.
Statistics show that almost a third of worker fatalities were caused by traffic accidents. And for every serious accident that results in a fatality there are hundreds of minor accidents that have the potential to land a company in hot water, with insurance claims, damage payouts and the emotional stress and trauma for all involved.
So ignoring the problem of dangerous employee driving is no longer an option for companies today.
The best way to lower your accident rate
With fleet drivers covering a huge number of miles every year, it’s almost inevitable that, in a large fleet, there will be accidents. How can you make sure you keep your company accident rate to an absolute minimum?
To promote safer driving there are a lot of measures, as an employer, you can take. From installing hands-free mobile phone kits to running mandatory BTW training courses, you can do a lot to keep your drivers safe and out of harms way.
But since speeding is reported to be responsible for over a third of all accidents in the U.S. we want to focus on how you can actively manage and minimize any speeding amongst your drivers.
In our next post, we’ll explain how you can use GPS fleet tracking to control excessive speeding, thus reducing your exposure to fatal accidents and demonstrating evidence that as an employer you are taking all measures to keep your drivers and the public safe. To make sure you don’t miss it, subscribe to our blog feed!
September 1st, 2010 at 12:25 pm
That is SO true and people never think about the very rare, but very important, liability to consider as a company