Posted By Seejem What on earth is going on here? What a disgrace! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/..._and_islands/8063251.stm

Posted By Ian MacAskill We are a client (not mentioned in the article) of this vendor. As a supplier there have not been any issues with the service supplied (Waste removal). We do operate a vendor rating / review process so we do "police" our suppliers. Although we had an awareness of the accident we were not aware of the "prohibition" history. We are of course reviewing our relationship with the vendor who may still be trading pending appeal. Visibility of offences would of course help with vendor selection especially within the transport sector.

Posted By TonyB Ron (and all) The HSE has always had a public register of all enforcement (Notices and PRs). For the last 7-8 years this has been accessible from the Internet. Please see the link below. Therefore, it is very easy to see a company's enforcement history! However, just because you don't have any Notices doesn't mean your good - you may just have not be caught out. Also, most companies improve their standards after being served a Notice, so having a Notice or two doesn't mean that their standards are poor (any more). http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/prosecutions.htm All the best, TonyB

Posted By Ron Hunter TonyB: We're not discussing HSE enforcement here, rather prohibitions etc. placed by the Traffic Commissioner/VOSA on a Fleet Operator. The implications etc. are however broadly similar. I will be making further enquiry via the VOSA website. I would encourage others to do the same.

Posted By Lee Mac Seejem Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Very sad tragedy indeed. @Ron Totally agree, nice piece of info you have supplied. My concern is company A disappears today with husband as named director and reappears tomorrow only under a different title with the wife as named director. I have seen it happen here in NI a number of times, but I guess you can cover most of the angles most of the time but there is no way of covering all of the angles all of the time, although I do stand to be contradicted, (here's hoping). Regards Lee

Posted By Karen Todd This is extra scary because to run a haulage company you need to have someone with a certificate of professional competence in road haulage to get your operating licence (yes, I know some people pay a CPC holder who is nothing to do with the business but that is another matter). So, in theory, you should have a fair idea of how a haulage company *should* be run. Lots of other types of businesses you can just start up - with no requirement for competence at all. My husband was a long distance lorry driver and some of the stories are really bad: - "Why have you stopped?". "Lunch". "Get on up the road, you've no time for eating". - "Why are you parked up?". "I've no time on my card, I need a break". "The load has to be there for 6am, just be there". - "The lights on my trailer aren't working". "Tough, stick to the main roads and we'll get it fixed when you're back in the yard". - Drivers who drive with no tachograph as they figure it's better to have no records than dodgy records. - Units and trailers with defects that the operator doesn't want to know about. - Drivers who arrive at the docks and head to the pub before attempting to drive their lorry onto the boat. Some hairy moments, and in some instances the shunters (who are only meant to ship trailers) have to take over and drive their lorry on the boat for them. Heard a story about 1 driver who had to be carried to his lorry the next morning by 4 men, still out for the count, they drove it off the boat for him and left the keys with security and rang his company and said they wouldn't be releasing the keys for 24 hours as it'd be at least that long before the driver sobered up. - Drivers who cook with gas stoves in their cab. - "Keys are in the forklift, tip yourself". - Owner drivers driving day and night for the lure of the £££, or with huge start-up costs to pay off (overheads are HUGE). - Work that's been sub-contracted out so many times there's no profit at all hardly and definitely no money to go towards maintenance. I could go on. Read through the stuff on the VOSA website and hearings of the Traffic Commissioners: http://www.transporttribunal.gov.uk/index.htm http://www.vosa.gov.uk/v...icationsanddecisions.htm Have a look at some of the stats for defects, drivers hours, etc. That one is particularly shocking: http://www.transporttrib...entfiles/j84/68-2001.doc Lorry drivers are treated as the lowest of the low by some companies, and the drivers know that if they say boo there are plenty more unemployed lorry drivers crying out to do the work without so much as a whimper. Up to £600/week in your hand, more for international work, can be hard to say no to for some. KT

Posted By MW The company in question also has a license for removing asbestos...doesn't bode well, does it? MW