Tooz:
trevHCS:
What i learned from recent events is never use a footbridge. Only ones i seen come down were that M20 one and now this one. Road and rail bridges get hit with virtually no damage except a little dint.Obviously they dont use the same quality fixings for these, scary.
erm because they don’t need to be as strong…
how many pedestrians would you need on the bridge at the same time to weigh the same as a freight train ?
Near Wigan? 6
Carryfast:
The problem being that in this type of case a dangerous driving conviction will be very likely and that isn’t dependent on any excuse of management pressure and which also obviously forms a reasonable reason for termination of employment as part of that.
Oh of course, I’m not suggesting there is any excuse for what’s happened here if the driver knew the crane was up. But that is unlikely to be the whole story, and it is the whole story that an employer has to tell.
In firms where their sheets are whiter than white, they often don’t have these sorts of problems with bridge strikes and so on, because people are encouraged and enabled to work properly and their human failings are hedged against by, for example, cab alarms that make it clear to a distracted driver when the crane has been left up.
In another case where I’m aware of a pedestrian bridge being struck by a crane, the crew involved did not even lose their jobs, because it turned out that an alarm or an interlock was defective.
Also bearing in mind that the onus would be on the employee to prove mismanagement which could get very messy in court if the employer chooses to fight the allegations and the employee loses.Realistically being pushed by a guvnor to carry out dodgy work practices has always been a grey area with only one real solution in that it’s the employees responsibility to either refuse to do them and/or walk away from the job.Safe stowage of dangerous truck mounted equipment being the driver’s responsibility and no one else’s in the eyes of the law.
I agree absolutely. But the question is not purely about the employee’s blame. It is about whether that dodgy guvnor can then broadcast to every other employer the employee’s criminal misconduct, without telling them about the part he played in encouraging it. The future employer may still not employ the driver, but that is their decision to make on the basis of a full disclosure by the employer who they’ve asked for a reference.
It puts a completely different gloss on the situation if the ex-employer says “We found he was the pliant and unquestioning sort, and despite his reluctance when we first hired him, we encouraged him in general to break the law and travel with the crane raised on the route in question and others. Having established his habit, on this occasion he was travelling with a slightly taller box than usual, and as nobody knew the exact height of the crane or the unmarked bridge, this caused a bridge strike. The driver, since the law says he should not have obeyed our direct instructions in these circumstances, was convicted of dangerous driving, and for our part we told the police nothing of this and accused the driver, who admires us somewhat and is willing to see things the way we want him to see it. Despite his desirable character traits and an otherwise good record with us, we felt that we had to dismiss him for reasons twofold, firstly to make good on the deceit to the authorities and our superiors by acting outwardly as though we held him responsible, and secondly, in a more personal way, as an expression of our outrage at the situation we found ourselves in, to allow us to pretend somewhat to ourselves that we had played no part in causing it, and to eliminate from our view a painful reminder of what has turned out to be an extremely costly and embarrassing event.”
Clearly, that is not a reference that has ever been written, but it is often closer to the truth about what happens in industrial accidents.
OH MY GOD! That looks awful! I do hope the driver and anyone else in the truck are ok and not injured!
What would be the repercussions of this kind of incident, providing all else is above board, breaks, clean drug/alcohol screening etc?
Tommy.
I’ve a mate I worked with years ago and he got sacked for hitting a bridge and he started the day after he was sacked ,I don’t think hitting a bridge will end your driving carer , you probably won’t get the pick of the jobs about but you will get something , give it a few months and then you can get what you want
