The Automotive Blog

Two partners in 1-4-You Coaches of Burntwood, Staffordshire, have been jailed after the brakes failed on an elderly Bova Futura coach on Staxton Hill near Scarborough, causing it to hit a car, killing the car’s two occupants. Robert Ouhgton (53), who was driving the coach, was sentenced to five years and three months. His partner John Lote (61) was sentenced to three years. The accident happened in September 2008.

Oughton and Lote had both admitted manslaughter due to gross negligence at a previous hearing. Oughton also admitted causing death by dangerous driving.”

With reference to the outcome with 1-4-You coaches Matthew Burke of aide automotive says: “With latest corporate laws in the UK no business can afford to skip on maintenance or paper work.

aide automotive are always promoting good maintenance to bus and coach companies and with the BrakeCheck or EBS/ABS Sensor Tester these companies have affordable good test tools for brake testing and maintenance.

With regard to paper work aide automotive have simplified the system required for company owners and managers to advise employees and drivers what is required when driving on company business, Route Safe tells each driver daily to drive responsible and check the vehicle is road worthy.”

Go to aide automotive for full product details.

Engineering company Weir Services Ltd operate from 9 centres throughout the UK and use a fleet of approximately 300 vehicles.

With the first corporate manslaughter prosacution underway it has never been more important for companies to look at every avenue of risk. Road risk is a major factor in this and many companies send employees out to drive on UK roads.

aide automotive have introduced RouteSafe, an in vehicle Road Risk warning system to help protect against any road incidents.

Weir Engineering completed an installation of RouteSafe recently, promoting to driving staff a safe route is always the best.

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A recent survey of 10,000 at-work drivers by Matrix Global Services  highlights that organisations not implementing Duty of Care leave themselves open to  risk of prosecution, unlimited fines or even imprisonment,

The survey found that 40% of at-work drivers have never seen their company’s driver handbook.

This survey is a wake-up call to employers to think about how they manage work related road risk. Many employers think that if the vehicle is owned by their employee this lets them off the hook, but this is wishful thinking.

stated Michael Appleby, a health and safety specialist lawyer at Housemans in London.

Duty of Care not only applies to company car drivers but also to “grey fleet” vehicles which are owned by individuals but used for company business. In this survey 44.9% were driving these called ‘grey fleet’ cars, nearly half of the work force

 The duty of care issue is not a new one, indeed it has been high on fleet agendas for a number of years now, however, typically we have seen that companies face more of an administration burden in maintaining records and control over this group of drivers.

Chairman of ACFO Julie Jenner.

This administration burden is easy to alleviate with RouteSafe, a duty of care product supplied by aide automotive. This Duty Of Care kit system for a companies vehicle fleet, helps directors and managers take action to support corporate manslaughter laws

The results of our survey show that a huge number of UK businesses and organisations are not adequately dealing with this important aspect of workplace health and safety. This is despite the fact that their failure to do so could ultimately, cost them their businesses and even their personal freedom.

Scott Ingham, managing director of Matrix.

The survey results were compiled using 10,000 driver profiles on Driving Risk Manager over the period December 2008 to May 2009.

Follow this link for more products from aideautomotive