Driver fined for deception over false tachographs
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Falsifying tachograph records and taking insufficient daily rest cost driver Paul Bennett 2450 in fines and costs when he appeared before Liverpool magistrates.
Bennett, of Aintree Close, Kidderminster, pleaded guilty to two offences of falsification and one daily rest offence.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said the hours and tachograph regulations existed so that tired drivers were not behind the wheel of HGVs. A vehicle belonging to Bravo Haulage, of Lancaster, and driven by Bennett had been stopped in a routine check last August. An examination of his tachograph charts revealed that the chart for the previous day was incomplete and had been removed from the tachograph while the vehicle was moving.
The chart for the day of the check showed only one minute's driving, immediately before Bennett was spoken to by a traffic examiner, Bennett must have known that the chart he had inserted was incomplete and therefore false. When he handed it to the examiner he did not qualify it. Lie knew the examiner would look at it, so he made an incomplete chart which was intended to deceive. The charts also showed that Bennett had only taken 8hr 39min rest in a 24-hour period.
Asked about the daily rest offence, Bennett said he had known that he needed to take nine hours' rest and had slm ply miscalculated. On the first offence of falsification, he admitted taking the chart out early. He was planning to park up at Liverpool Docks and knew he was close to his 15-hour spreadover so he removed the chart close to the point where he had parked up.
On the day of the check he had taken his vehicle to the main Volvo agents because he had been having a lot of trouble with the air brakes and he had been there for four or five hours.
When he got to the road check, he had not put a chart in the tachograph and, in a moment of stupidity, he had thought he had better insert one rather than have none when he knew he was going to be stopped by the ministry.
Fining Bennett 2350 with 2100 costs, magistrate David Tapp said he could have been fined as much as 25,000 and at a crown court he could be sent to prison for such offences.
He had considered committing Bennett to crown court for sentence, but as this was Bennett's first offence in eight years, he considered that a fine was appropriate.