A Fatal Crash But Who’s to Blame?

A mock inquiry examines the steps directly leading up to a tragic incident on our roads resulting in the death of a little girl.

During the video interview the gas engineer, working for fake company Paradise Heating, says: “I should have been looking at the road, not my phone”, “Why did Trev have to call me just then?” and “I heard the stuff clattering up against the bulkhead as I crashed”.

Van Excellence Mock Trial Trailer

YouTube video

This is how the FTA Van Excellence Operational Briefing morning session, for which we are a sponsor, got underway at Twickenham last week.

The videos featured the thoughts of three actors playing the roles of driver, operations director and managing director at a non-existent gas engineering company.

Delegates were treated to an Oscar-worthy performance as the gas engineer admitted to not regularly checking his vehicle, talked about too much pressure being placed on him by his boss; and additional financial pressures. “Time is money” he said. Cannabis in his blood stream, bald tyres and an attitude that leased vans are less likely to be faulty all contributed to the road traffic collision.

The operations manager wasn’t much better. He admitted that he doesn’t check the defect reports regularly, yet tells his drivers to do their walk around checks all the time. He manages the O-licence for the three larger vans in the fleet and meanwhile, the other six smaller vehicles are “run as normal” he says.

The Managing Director, the person named on the O-licence, admits he is not in daily control of the fleet and says he hands responsibility over to the operations manager. In the video he claims to not be a cowboy operator saying he spends a lot on maintenance: “the garage bills are stacking up” he says, as he deludedly maintains “I’ve got a slick company”.

Who is most at fault in this scenario? Is it the driver for speeding, careless driving and being over the drug-drive limit. The operations Manager for neglecting his duties, or the Managing Director for absolving himself from his responsibilities?

Attendees at the FTA Van Excellence event found out how each was sentenced in the afternoon session. If you want to find out the result you will have to attend the third and final briefing in Harrogate on Wednesday 29th March.

The agenda was also packed with intelligent presentations. Notably, Colin Knight of Clancy Docwra, gave an account of how his business manages risk by assigning financial metrics for all interventions to understand return on investment. He also said that when the company first introduced telemetry the Clancy Group saved £30,000 in a single week by limiting wasteful engine idling time. Our customers have experienced similarly impressive and fast savings for this kind of activity too.

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