The most expensive accidents can often be the ones you try and sort out yourself. In 2018, ensuring expert help is at hand stops a bad situation becoming worse than it needs to be.

It‘s every transport operator‘s worst phone call: one of the fleet has come to grief. It could be anything from a small mishap, on its own, on private land, involving only the driver, right through to a major incident, in public, involving other vehicles, and possibly many souls. Regardless of scale, it‘s what happens in the first minutes after you‘ve been told that will determine how the incident will play out and what it will eventually end up costing, financially, commercially, and emotionally.

For all but a few companies with the appropriate level of in-house resources and expertise, choosing to address the situation yourself in 2018 is fraught with risk. In today‘s world the safety and environmental obligations in terms of clean-up alone are beyond the management capabilities of most businesses. Aligning your business to partners able to offer expert help on managing the clean-up and aftermath of an accident allows you to retain a high level of business continuity in times of crisis, and will do much to retain your customer‘s belief that they‘re dealing with a professional, credible supplier.

Capability demonstration

NZI – Crash Scene Assistance (CSA)

Recently NZI put on a live demonstration for customers and brokers of their capability in managing the immediate aftermath of an incident, the clean-up, and restoration work that follows.

According to NZI‘s national portfolio manager commercial motor, Ian Taylor, trucks tend to be over-represented in serious crashes because of their large mass. “Often it‘s not a truck driver at fault, but these crashes can be hugely traumatic for them because of the damage they can do with their vehicle.”

Taylor says as well as salvaging the vehicle, they will take care of any road clean-up, environmental issues, and driver support that‘s needed.

“It‘s crucial truck drivers have access to the right people immediately after a crash to get them out of harm‘s way and take care of the clean-up so drivers can focus solely on getting the emotional support they often need.”

Present at the demonstration were CSA crash scene coordinators from around the country, preferred recovery suppliers, and representatives from fire, ambulance and the CVST. Two separate incidents were reconstructed for the demonstration, a truck versus car, and a single trailer rollover. Attendees witnessed the communication path that occurs immediately following an incident, the roles of the various services – enacted by the actual service – and live demonstrations of the vehicle recovery and salvage.

Hosting the commentary was veteran crash scene coordinator Gavin Vowles.

“Most of time attempting to resolve the situation yourself costs more in the long run. We often see situations where a vehicle that would have been repairable when it was at the bottom of the bank, is no longer repairable by the time someone who didn‘t seek expert help dragged it to the top themselves.

“With our systems we can often have repair suppliers swinging into action, aware of what they‘ll need to organise and order, before the claim‘s even been lodged.”

Greg Crawford, general manager of Waikato-based Orion Haulage, gave a customer testimonial of the effectiveness of the CSA service, citing an incident where what appeared to be a basic trailer rollover had serious environmental implications that were able to be averted as a result of seeking the expert help of the NZI CSA team.

“With the trucks we have on the road and mileage they‘re doing, interacting with the public etc., incidents happen, and we have to deal with it. The NZI CSA team do a bloody great job. It goes beyond just a truck lying on its side. It‘s environmental; it‘s every aspect.

“NZI is a great business partner of ours and I would highly recommend them.”