McCarron Coates Supports Eye-opening Mock Trial

Fleet transport insurance broker, McCarron Coates, is intending to get its clients, and others in the commercial motor world, on the front foot in January, as it goes into the New Year as the headline sponsor of a mock motoring trial, to be staged on January 23, 2025.

The broker has put its financial support behind an event called ‘Trial by Roadside – the Corporate Cost’, to be held at The Council House, in Birmingham.  

Organised by Freight People in partnership with LMP Legal, this will feature a motoring offence, punishment for which will be considered by an ‘appointed’ judge and jury, in a courtroom setting that could be witnessed anywhere across the country, in any week.

Attendees will be able to listen to evidence and witness statements and determine, in their own mind, whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty.  During this process, key messages should be picked up and lessons learned.  

“The mock trial should be an eye-opener for many of those in the ‘public gallery’”, says McCarron Coates director, Ian McCarron.

“It will help highlight that, what may be everyday occurrences within fleets or driver behaviours, can suddenly create a situation that escalates and which jeopardises a driver’s liberty or a fleet’s future, if unaddressed.  It should also underline the intention behind motoring law and the sentencing that applies to it.”

Fellow director, Paul Coates, adds, “The mock trial really should erode any complacency that exists with regard to compliance and ensure that all attendees go away with lots of food for thought and things to put on the risk management action plan.  It is a brilliant way to drive home messages relating to commercial driving.”

This is just one initiative that the fleet transport specialist has deployed in 2024, to help commercial fleets take the implications of motoring law breaches more seriously.  Earlier in the year, it launched its own board game, Road Hierarchy, which is available as a website download and which focuses on how to best keep a driver on the road.

With opportunities for attendees to network and discuss the mock trial proceedings as the day unfolds, there are opportunities for operators to share best practice and discuss their own approaches to some of the scenarios that arise.  The McCarron Coates team will also be on hand to offer its advice.

Anyone wishing to attend the mock trial as a guest of McCarron Coates can contact Ian McCarron or Paul Coates on 0113 298 3489.

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Editors notes

McCarron Coates is an award-winning insurance broker, based in Morley, Leeds, which is a specialist in fleet transport insurance and other niche areas such as roofing, scaffolding and woodworking insurance. It also supplies many other types of commercial insurance policies and risk management services, to clients nationwide and is highly respected as an industry thought-leader, within its individual spheres of influence.