Drivers failed to take breaks • Drivers employed by Prestons
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of Potto have been fined for a series of tachograph offences.
They were among 17 drivers who pleaded guilty at Northallerton Magistrates' Court to a total of 37 offences, including driving for four-and-a-half hours without the required 45-minute break, taking insufficient daily and weekly rest, exceeding the daily driving limit and failing to keep tachograph records. The offences came to light when traffic examiners made a routine check on the company's tachograph records last June, said Richard Wadkin, prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate.
He said the driving hours limits were designed to avoid the danger of heavy vehicles being driven by tired drivers.
Stephen Kirkbright, defending the drivers, said more than 2,000 tachograph charts had been examined, and the 37 breaches represented a relatively small proportion of offences.
Many of the offences had arisen when drivers had been waiting in queues, said Kirkbright. There was no suggestion that the company had encouraged the drivers to commit offences and, when such a large number of tacho graph records was examined, some breaches of the regulations were bound to be found.
Most of the offences related to taking insufficient breaks. The drivers had taken breaks, but they had not met the requirements of the regulations. The tachograph offences had arisen when drivers failed to close their tachograph heads properly after checking their hours and breaks.
In every case the drivers had correctly recorded the mileage at the end of the day and there had been no attempt to conceal anything. Kirkbright said that, had any of the drivers' offences come to light individually, it was unlikely that they would have been prosecuted.
None of the drivers had made a penny out of the offences, as they were paid on a fixed weekly rate.
The magistrates fined each of the drivers £75 with £35 costs on each of the hours offences and gave absolute discharges to those accused of breaking the tachograph regulations.