Drums on a shoestring
Page 18
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Keighley based Northern Drums was not a "cowboy outfit" even if it was run on a shoestring said David Whittaker, solicitor for the company, when it appeared before North Eastern Traffic Commissioner Keith Waterworth.
Department of Transport vehicle examiner Robert Farr said he carried out a maintenance inves ot,)
I
ligation in May, This followed two immediate prohibitions in a roadside check on a tractor and trailer found to have defective brakes. He examined one vehicle and issued a defect notice.
Farr added that there were no arrangements for drivers to report defects and the situation was a repeat of that found during an unsatisfactory maintenance investigation in July 1992.
Whittaker said the company accepted it had not kept its act together administratively; The inspection records had not been available to show to the vehicle examiner: if they had been his report might not have been so damning.
Whittaker said that invoices showed a lot of work had been done to the vehicles.
General manager Bernard McKnight said that paperwork was not his forte. He considered that the company had a reasonably regular servicing schedule considering the low mileage the vehicles did. The artic given the recent prohibitions had been
hooked into the commercial garage to have its brakes adjusted the day it was stopped. He added that the firm had reintroduced a written driver defect reporting system. The company was seeking IS09000 SD its documentation needed to be spot on in the future, he said.
After examining paperwork produced at the hearing, Farr said that driver defect reports showed an oil leak had been reported for 18 consecutive days, a cracked mirror for 27 consecutive days, and a broken reflector for 14 days. Whittaker commented that substantial amounts of money had been spent on maintaining the company's vehicles.
Issuing a final warning, Waterworth said that road safety was not an optional extra. It lay at the heart of the licensing system and any continuing failure would result in action being taken against a licence.
He added that maintenance was not just an administrative matter and he would review the firm in six to nine months.