A New Years Resolution To Think About

In April next year, the new offence of corporate manslaughter becomes law.

Thereafter, it will be possible to charge an employer with manslaughter if:

- the way in which an organisation is managed by its senior managers causes the death of someone owed a duty of care (emphasis mine) by that organisation (such as an employee, another driver, pedestrian etc.)

- and it falls so far short of an acceptable standard that it is right to fix the organisation with criminal responsibility.

Employers face an unlimited fine if convicted.

A much closer analysis of road traffic accidents and indeed driving generally is planned.  Employers of all sizes must expect scrutiny of their driving policies, training, risk assessments and safety leadership. …

• businesses of all sizes are advised to reassess their driving and health and safety policies…
• If detailed driving policies were not previously put in place by an employer, they should …
• … must monitor and if necessary enforce compliance via a training and disciplinary process if they are to demonstrate the proper discharge of their own obligations.  

Full text of this innovative and perhaps scary assignment of responsibility by law.

Most of my readers are in the US so you can breath (temporarily) a sigh of relief when you look into this article and realize it is a report from the UK.  But I wouldn’t necessarily just click on without giving some thought.

I report here often on companies being given whopping "fines" in terms of judgements in civil trials.  Our law in the United States is based very closely on English law.  Corporate responsibility has become more and more a word on the public’s lips.  So if you think that it’s not possible for such a law to be passed in the US, I submit you are whistling in the dark.

But forget what might or might not become law.  Think, as we head into the New year, about your duty of care as a corporate citizen of the world.  If you could install a system, for much less than the cost of one year’s liability insurance premium, that would show proven savings of more than 4 times it’s cost, why wouldn’t you?

Save money, improve you business, protect the lives of your employees and those around them.  Yes, I’m talking GPS Tracking, of course, the the proven ROI from using GPS tracking.  Sounds like a win-win to me, what about you?