A recent article by 4WD Victoria on Facebook raises an interesting question. Why should you join a club and not just be part of a Facebook group with a bunch of people who organize 4WD trips?
There are so many answers to this question but for today we will touch on just one the reasons.
When a group of people organise an “event” or “trip” with members of the public this opens the organiser of this trip up to legal liability if a member of the public is injured or killed. Let’s say person A & B organise a “Trip” via Facebook which is open to members of the pubic, now we aren’t just talking friends and family we mean members of the public. This trip is in a State Forest and happens to be in a HQ Plantations managed area of forestry such as Glasshouse Mountains.
10 Vehicles with a total of 20 members of the public attend and head out for the day. During the day one of the members of the public in this trip forgets to apply the handbrake, their vehicle rolls and seriously injures a member of the public who is attending a Mountain Bike event in the same area. Immediately not only the owner of the vehicle, but the “Organisers (Person A & B)” of this trip could also be held liable for all medical costs relating to this accident. Is it an iron clad guarantee all parties involved will be liable for costs? The short answer is no. The long answer is, it is 100% possible. Not only the trauma of living with this accident, but the costs could financially cripple those liable for a lifetime.
In the above situation the Mountain Bike Rider was permitted to be there, the mountain bike club they belonged to had both a permit from plantation management or QPWS and their club also had public liability insurance. The 4WD “Facebook” group had neither of these.
Whilst some may argue this is simply fear mongering and “It will never happen to me”, think about others not just yourself. If accidents never happened why do we insure our cars, houses and health.
JeepFreakz QLD Inc. is an incorporated club in QLD which means we must have Public Liability Insurance. We are fully insured as are many other 4WD clubs all over Australia.
