"My Employees Don’t Drive That Way" …. Yep, OK, Whatever
Nice little “Mommy van” sort of care, isn’t it? You probably were behind one very similar today on your track from “Black Friday Sale” to “Black Friday Sale”. An ideal car for a catering business … big enough to hold supplies and a few staff, small enough to be economical and go fast!
A contract caterer has been banned from driving after he was caught speeding at more than 113mph in a people carrier.
Ian Duguid, 48, of Croft Road, Kelso, claimed the Ford S-Max was too powerful and told the court that he had now sold it and replaced it with a smaller car….
He was banned from driving for four months and fined £1,000 after he admitted the offence on 8 September.
Duguid told the court he had not realised he was traveling so fast on the Perth to Edinburgh road.
“It was a moment of stupidity and I should not have been so stupid,” he said.
“I have since sold the vehicle because the car was too powerful.
“It gave a false sense of what you were doing and you did not realise what speed you were traveling at.” … read the rest of Ian sad story here
1,000 GB Pounds is a bit over $2000 USD at today’s rate (oh, how my poor dollar has fallen). Is your little company, just getting to the point it will start showing a profit, got an extra $2,000 lying about to feed the court … I just had to throw in the picture of the Perth (Scotland) Sheriff’s Court building … looks like it hasn’t changed much since Robin Hood’s day. I’m sure the business can afford to chauffeur Ian around during his suspension too … that’s really a partial loss of two employees … but you have employees to spare, don’t you?
Half of the driver’s “excuses’ sound like the ordinary human BS we manufacture when we are caught with our hand in the cookie jar … but I sympathize with Ian on many of the things he says.
When your mind is busy with work and family issues you just may be driving much faster than you intended. I’m sure a number of the company drivers I helped management spot with GPS tracking weren’t driving that fast intentionally.
But intentional or not, dangerous driving can wreck a small business in one easy lesson. In this case it was merely a fine and an inconvenience … it could have involved deaths and injuries too. A top-quality GPS tracking system, complete with management speeding alerts and other important measurement tools would cost maybe $500 USD or so … can you do the math? Saving just one conviction like this per year would give a 4 to 1 ROI on a GPS tracking equipment investment … I didn’t graduate from Harvard Business School but I think I can figure that one out for myself … can you?