One Clear Dot

My title is misleading, because I really feel like if asked to choose between UPS and FedEx, it’s a toss up. They’re both acceptably reliable and operate as very professional businesses.

DHL, on the other hand, is a joke.

I worked with a woman who had a husband who drove for DHL. He was essentially a contract worker, who drove his own vehicle. When things got busy around Christmas, his wife would take some of the load and jump in her own car to deliver packages. She told me about a time she was driving down a back road in West Virginia and could not find a package she needed to deliver. Backtracking, she found that she had left the latch to the back of her pickup open and had been dropping boxes along the road for miles. In the slush.

I never, ever used DHL after hearing that whopper of a story.

And then today I was reading the paper and came upon the story of how a box of evidence sent to the Florida Supreme Court has gone missing. This is key evidence that could very well determine if a convicted murderer stays on death row.

It turns out that the court uses DHL for shipping. It’s a state contract. Although one box of evidence made it to its destination, the other was among the items inside of a 53-foot trailer that was stolen in Orlando sometime between 11 p.m. Nov. 4 and 2 a.m. Nov. 5.

DHL told the court they were not hopeful of recovering the box and offered the court $100. Sounds like they could use a good GPS vehicle tracking system.

Niiice.

A carrier service should never be used to transport evidence. Law enforcement personnel should be the only ones in possession of such sensitive items so that a chain of custody is firmly in place.

So, not only does this provide me with yet another reason that nobody with half a brain should use DHL, it also proves that some procedural changes are much needed in Florida. That, and the GPS tracking system I mentioned.

Posted on December 22nd, 2007 by onecleardot
Filed under: Life in the U.S.