cav551:
The fitter responsible for safety inspections on the tipper involved in the fatal runaway crash at Bath is in jail. So no the buck does not stop with the driver.
Because he signed off the inspection as being roadworthy.
It’s not the driver who would get the kicking over this its the operator. If the operator takes a vehicle from the repairer without it having been signed off as roadworthy then should anything happen he is first in the queue. Unless the mechanical fault is obvious to the driver collecting it he would not be at fault, which was also the case in the Bath case.
Its an interesting point as to where the driver sits in this. I would suggest if he collects a vehicle as instructed and his walk round check doesn’t detect anything and say the brakes fail - if the sheet is signed off as roadworthy then as per Bath its the fitter. If the fitter has not signed off the vehicle then its the operator for not checking that he is sending the driver to collect a roadworthy vehicle.
If the driver collected a vehicle signed off as roadworthy when it had a bald tyre then I think the driver would have a good defence that a person more qualified than him had inspected the vehicle before use and declared it as safe.
Not signed off but with a bald tyre is muddier but again there is an expectation from the driver that the vehicle has been declared safe to use. Of course if the fitter then had not signed it off because of the bald tyre its possible back to the operator for sending the driver out in a unroadworthy vehicle.