Corporate manslaughter legislation waiting to trip up SME fleets

Author:

MATT MORTON

Managers with SME car and van fleets should watch out for police forces looking for a prosecution under corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide legislation.

That’s the view of Sgt Gareth Morgan, supervisor of South Wales Police Driver Training at this year’s ACFO Conference, which was held last week at the Mercedes-Benz World facility.

To-date there have been just two successful prosecutions under the 2007 Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, but neither was linked to fatalities involving at-work drivers. Historically police forces investigated ‘death on the highway’. However, they now look for ‘responsibility’, which in the case of at-work drivers could include investigation of the roles played by fleet decision-makers, company directors and other employees in implementing and managing an occupational road risk management strategy.

“90% of accidents are as a result of human behaviour,” said Sgt Morgan, who advocates businesses using psychometric profiling as a successful method to enable drivers to self-evaluate their behaviour on the road and organisations to develop and implement at-work driving risk management strategies.

Psychometric profiling has been successfully introduced by South Wales Police with a resulting 10% reduction in accident rates in the last 12 months. Suggesting that psychometric profiling is more successful, cheaper and more efficient than on-the-road driver training, Sgt Morgan added: “Fleet managers must ask if the at-work driving risk management processes they have in place will withstand scrutiny from the police service.