Accidents happen from time to time. If you are the owner of a transportation business, then an accident could be very bad for your company’s reputation. Accidents that take place on the road involving your fleet could result in your driver being arrested, taken to court, and your company being sued.
If one of your staff has been involved in an accident, then you need to contact an attorney and ask for their help. In addition to asking for an attorney’s advice, you also need to know about the legal tips that will be outlined in this post.
Contacting Attorney
It’s essential that you reach out to an attorney. After your staff has been involved in an accident involving a commercial vehicle, a lawyer should be your first point of call. The reason for this is that you will likely be held accountable by the victim’s insurance company.
Compensation claims made after commercial vehicle accidents can result in very large settlements being paid out, so you need to get yourself a lawyer to represent and defend you.
Acquiring Evidence
If the accident involved one of your fleet vehicles, then you should try to get camera footage from the vehicle. If the accident resulted in a serious injury or fatality, or your employee was driving recklessly, then there’s a strong chance that the police will seize the vehicle and the vehicle’s onboard camera.
The police will then release this equipment to you after your employee’s case has been seen in court, meaning you won’t be able to get your hands on evidence until after the case. If the accident was not serious, then you can get your truck or van’s camera equipment immediately.
Interviewing Staff
After an accident, you should interview the staff member that was involved in the accident. While the police, the victim’s lawyer, and your insurance company will conduct their own investigations into the accident, you should too.
An internal company investigation will help you to highlight any issues that led to the accident taking place, in addition to giving you an idea of your staff’s competency. Interviewing the staff member will make it easier for you to determine whether or not they are a risk to the general public. You may want to hire a private investigator to conduct an investigation into the employee, also.
Reviewing Footage
If you are fortunate enough to be able to get the van or truck dash-cam footage, then you can go ahead and review it. When reviewing the footage, it is a good idea to invite other senior staff members into the room to view it with you.
Viewing the footage with other people will give you an opportunity to hear other people’s opinions. If the accident was caused by another person’s negligence (and not your driver), then you can go easy on them. Accidents caused by an employee’s negligence, however, should be punished severely.
Dismissing Employees
As mentioned in the previous section, if your employee was responsible for causing the accident then it is absolutely essential that you punish them. The reason for this is that by making an example out of that employee, you can prevent other staff from making the same mistakes as them and being negligent.
It is worth noting that if the employee was not at fault, then you should not discipline or punish them, and instead, you should give them a little bit of time off of work, so that they can recover from the accident, emotionally and physically.
Public Statements
Many large companies immediately rush to make public statements after their employees have been involved in an accident involving members of the public, usually as a form of damage control. In most cases, it’s not a good idea to do this.
Instead, you should wait until your lawyer comes back to you and gives you a full overview of everything that’s going on. It is usually best to work with one’s lawyer to prepare a public statement if a statement is necessary.
Working with your lawyer to prepare a statement will prevent you from saying anything incriminating or including information that the public shouldn’t know.
Private Settlements
Your lawyer will be able to give you advice on private settlements, but if it looks like the injured person is going to take your business to court, then it is a good idea to give them a private settlement.
A private settlement will prevent them from publicizing that your company caused their injuries. Most people are required to sign non-disclosure forms after they receive private settlements, meaning that they aren’t able to talk to anyone about their accident.
A private settlement is definitely something that’s worth considering because it will protect your company’s reputation.
Retraining Staff
If untrained staff were to blame for the accident taking place, then you should retrain your staff. Truthfully, after an accident, it is a good idea to retrain all of your staff anyway, just so that you can be sure it doesn’t happen again.
Proper staff training will also look very good in the eyes of any investigative or authoritative bodies who have been charged with looking at your company. Retraining your staff is something that will help you to recover in the eyes of the public. Additionally, it will keep your staff from ever making any mistakes again.
Vetting New Hires
You should more carefully vet new hires when you are hiring people, after an accident. If a serious accident has taken place and it was caused by your employee’s negligence, then that is a strong indication that you are not hiring highly-qualified people.
It instead shows that you are hiring people who aren’t fit to work for your company. Implement stricter hiring rules and look deeper into potential employees’ lives. You can hire private investigators to vet new hires for you. It is common practice for companies to do this nowadays since social media makes it very easy to look into a person’s life.
After an accident, you need to know exactly what to do legally. Making the wrong move could make your company look bad and interrupt legal proceedings. The most important piece of advice this post can give you is to contact an attorney, who will be able to handle all of your case’s complex details and confusing legalese.
