(19 Feb 2025, 11:20 pm)stagecoachbusdepot wrote I don't really get your point here - which situation do you think the GNE letter makes any difference in?  The slap on the wrist type or killing someone?  Whether you get stopped as a driver for having a tail light out, or for mowing someone down due to knackered brakes or whatever fault was present, you're liable regardless what anyone at the depot did or didnt say if you were driving a vehicle with an unsafe to drive fault showing.  

I understand people think this daft letter means GNE can say nothing to do with them, but they could equally do this without the nonsense letter as DVSA are clear who is responsible for ensuring a vehicle is roadworthy (it's not the person sat in control room).  The letter is basically pointless but also as I said before, if I was a driver I'd view it as corporate permission to do exactly as others have said and engine off, refuse to move - send replacement bus and recover the heap etc.

The letter isn't pointless though as GoAhead have a duty to train their staff on defects and this agreement is proving they're doing that. Without the letter, the excuses can start coming out and the management have nothing to proove what is and isn't right and it makes the management liable aswell and the fines can be nasty aswell, ie Merlin who got fined £5m and that was just over poor training not corporate manslaughter which is even worse.

From a driver's perspective it's a total different ball game aswell. Going into court knowing you outright ignored company procedure and caused a death is very different to going into court with I didn't know it was a problem, the mechanic said it was alright. Bus drivers are drivers, not mechanics. The sentence between these will be very different.

It's all the same reason why people go on training courses which are mostly pointless, it's just so management can shun any responsibility on anything which they involve because they got training, without the training it's very much you vs them.