Licence suspended for misusing digicard
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Driver who falsified records using card belonging to someone else has his vocational licence suspended
By Roger Brown
SCOTTISH TRAFFIC Commissioner (TC) Joan Aitken has suspended the vocational licence of a former driver at K&C Logistics for nine months after she was told he had used another driver’s digital tachograph card to falsify his records.
At a public inquiry and driver conduct hearings in Edinburgh in March and May 2012, the TC said that John Ferguson, a driver at the Fife-based haulier had taken the disastrous step of crossing the line into dishonest use of another driver’s digital card.
A Vosa trafic examiner visited the irm’s premises in March 2011 following a tip-off.
The examiner discovered that Ferguson had used a digital driver card in the name of John Cairns during the period 3 February 2011 to 7 March 2011, creating 20 drivers’ hours offences. Ferguson conirmed this in a formal interview. On 5 February 2011, Ferguson had driven a vehicle speciied on the O-licence of related company JC Environmental Solutions, using Cairns’ digicard.
By doing so, Ferguson was concealing that he was on his 14th day of continuous driving.
Ferguson said he had broken the rules on driving hours with the tachograph cards because it was the only way he could make enough money to pay his mortgage and support his family.
In her written decision, the TC acknowledged that Ferguson had since stopped working for K&C and was unlikely to ever repeat the behaviour.
The Vosa investigation revealed there was also an arrangement between Ferguson and his employer that led to the avoidance of paying national insurance and PAYE.
Aitken said Stewart Craft, who helped run K&C, had exploited the business naivety of Ferguson, with regards to the payment arrangements.
The TC suspended K&C’s licence for a month and curtailed the licence held by JC from 10 to seven vehicles until 1 October .
She concluded that Ferguson’s motivation was quite simply inancial.
The TC added: “He dishonestly and knowingly used another driver’s digital card to make a false record of his driving such that any roadside enforcement oficer, whether Vosa or the police, would take him as compliant when in fact he had not taken the rest which all drivers need to take to protect them from fatigue.
“It is very serious indeed to falsify records by the use of another person’s card.” With regards to the behaviour of the company, Aitken added: “An operator simply cannot hand a tranche of work over to a driver and then turn a blind eye to how the work is done and then make a gross payment.”
Organising work
Operators must schedule or organise work so that compliance with drivers’ hours is factored in. Hauliers should know when, where and by whom the vehicle is being driven.