In the recent case of Hunterstrong Engineering Ltd t/a Northover Heavy Logistics and others, the Upper Tribunal reminded operators of the benefits of being proactive when issues arise.
Operators should have systems in place to prevent problems from occurring but, if problems do occur, then operators should instigate a thorough investigation immediately with the aim of aim determining the root cause of the problem. They should then implement new systems to prevent a similar instance from happening again. These systems should be monitored and audited regularly to ensure they are working correctly.
In the above case, the Tribunal stated that: “Operators who can say: ‘I realised that something went wrong/was not satisfactory. These are the steps which I took to put matters right. They appear to have solved the problem’, will put themselves in a stronger position than those who delay or wait to be told what to do.”
Those operators who do not take remedial action at the earliest opportunity are less likely to have sufficient amounts of data to be able to demonstrate that their actions are actually working. Instead operators will simply have to rely on a promise to the Traffic Commissioner that things will improve and they should not be surprised if the Traffic Commissioner has some doubts.
That said Operators should realise that it is always better to turn up at a Public Inquiry today having implemented a corrective system yesterday than to have not implemented anything at all.