.For the purposes of this article I am going to discuss the law that is applicable for an accident involving a works vehicle. I’m going to cover what happens if you are injured because the vehicle is broken or defective as oppose to a general road accident – unless the accident was caused due to a defect.
A vehicle provided by your employer is classed as work equipment, and is therefore subject to The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. This hugely important piece of legislation puts an important duty on your employer to make sure that work equipment that is provided to you is, in essence, safe to use.
I will quote some of the important parts of the regulations:
5.1 – “Every employer shall ensure that work equipment is maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.”
5.2 – “Every employer shall ensure that where any machinery has a maintenance log, the log is kept up to date.”
This is one of the most important parts of the regulations for work equipment. The fact that it states “shall ensure” can impose a strict liability on an employer if you are injured because a vehicle is deemed to be defective. As you can see from the second part, there is a duty for the employer to keep an up to date maintenance log when suitable as well. For works vehicles, you would expect an MOT when required and regular safety inspections to make sure the vehicle is safe to use.
But to reiterate the initial point, the first part here can be used to put an employer to strict liability, which means that they must compensate you if you are injured due to a vehicle defect, irrelevant of whether they had the power to prevent the accident/injury at all. If you are injured and the vehicle is deemed to be defective, you have a strong claim.
A defect for a vehicle could range from anything from defective couplings like Susie cables, to wheel defects causing an accident or an injury, or something wrong with the cab that causes injury.
6 – (2) Every employer shall ensure that work equipment exposed to conditions causing deterioration which is liable to result in dangerous situations is inspected —
(a) at suitable intervals; and
(b) each time that exceptional circumstances which are liable to jeopardise the safety of the work equipment have occurred
When it comes to vehicles, as I touched on earlier, you would expect that vehicles need regular inspection and maintenance – particularly if they are doing a lot of miles on a continual basis. Tyre condition, tyre pressure, and wheel nuts would be the really obvious ones. These are all things that normally need fairly regular attention for most ordinary vehicles, let alone a vehicle doing considerable mileage on a daily basis. The duty is on your employer to ensure that the upkeep of vehicles, as work equipment, is maintained.
When you have the two parts of the regulation above, you can see that there is a clear duty on an employer to ensure that work equipment is safe and ensure that it is inspected and maintained where applicable. If you are injured because work equipment is deemed as defective, whether it is unsuitable or damaged, the power of the regulations above will normally allow you to have a great shot at claiming compensation from your employers insurance.
To discuss whether you have a claim, call us on 0800 634 75 75 today
