UK-registered trucks only used in Greece
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• by Mike Jewell The Operator's Licences held by four Greek-owned companies, whose British registered vehicles hardly ever return to the UK, have been revoked by Eastern Traffic Commissioner Geoffrey Simms.
The TG has also decided that their English transport manager Clive Usher, who used his home in Great Staughton, Cambs as the operating centre for all four companies, is no longer of good repute.
The companies concerned, DKZ Transport, Golden Fruits Transport, Target Transportation le, Forwarding and Euroline Transport, had been called before Simms at a Cambridge disciplinary inquiry.
Evidence was given by vehicle arid traffic examiners that since the licences were granted the vehicles had never used the operating centre and did not come to the UK on a regular basis. There also appeared to be occasions when vehicles belonging to Golden Fruits Transport and Euroline had been used without current vehicle excise licences.
The maintenance contractors were in Athens rather than Bedfordshire; no records were being kept at the operating centre; the transport manager never saw the vehicles; and the drivers were all Greeks living in Greece who received their instructions there for journeys between Greece and other European countries.
The IC was told that the holding of Community Authorisations issued under a UK 0licence would entitle the holder to carry out cabotage operations in Greece itself. Nikolaos Koutrouvelis, company secretary of DKZ Transport, said it was difficult for Greek operators to obtain 0-licences in their own country, as there was a tightly restricted supply and a black market in international 0-licences.
A number of tachograph records for three vehicles operated by Golden Fruits Transport
revealed 1111111CPOLIS breaches of daily and weekly rest and daily driving limits. Tachograph charts produced for one vehicle operated by Euroline Transport showed serious drivers' hours offences on 47 charts, 26 of which showed director Vass!lios Tsimpoukas as the driver.
Usher said that he received tachograph records by courier, analysed them and sent them back with a report from which it was assumed drivers were disciplined. He had visited the directors in Greece to impress upon them the standards required by the IC. A firm of accountants taxed the vehicles on the direct instructions of the directors.
Simms said that Usher had fulfilled the role of CPC holder and was the provider of the operating centre, for both of which he received payment. He concluded that Usher's motive was financial reward. Usher was unable to produce a single tachograph record to demonstrate the use of the authorised operating centre. For that clear and cynical abuse alone of the licensing regime, Usher was not of good repute.
Simms said Usher had neither seen nor analysed the tachograph records produced by Euroline Transport covering the first 10 months of the previous year, which caused him to find that there may well have been many other tachograph records he had failed to check.
Revoking the licences, the IC said it was quite clear that these were Greek-based operations which should be the subject of a Greek 0-licence. The operators could not prove professional competence as Simms had already found against their nominated transport manager.
Simms disqualified the firms and their directors for three years— apart from Euroline, which was banned for five years.