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'Systemic failure' sees 0-licence cut
Page 10
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" by Dominic Perry
A South Wales operator whose truck was Involved in a fatal motorway smash has had its licence cut and suspended after an investigation revealed "systemic failure" of its maintenance regime.
TG Howell, a builders and timber merchant based in Newport, Gwent, holds a restricted licence, and operations manager Martin Howell has previously appeared at a crown court trial following the accident on the M5 Avonmouth Bridge in September 2000. Howell's fully laden artic ploughed into the back of a Rover Metro car, killing the occupants.
The company was subsequently fined a total of 130,000 for two breaches of health and safety legislation with £12000 costs; Martin Howell was flied £5,000 for similar offences and driver David Morris was fined £1,000 for careless driving (CM18-24 July 2002).
Maintenance contractor David Dugmore was also given a six-month suspended sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Traffic officer PC Philip Scull told the Newport disciplinary inquiry that police investigations revealed that Dugmore had fabtfied 69 of 142 maintenance records after the accident.
The Welsh Traffic Commissioner David Dixon was considering disciplinary action against two 0-licences—one belonging to the firm and one to director Terry Howell; overall, it was licensed to run 14 vehicles.
Vehicle examiner Bob Williams said that prior to the smash 'there had been a complete failure of the maintenance system", as Martin Howell was not examining maintenance records on a regular basis. Subsequent investigations revealed that even 18 months after the crash there were still problems with the inspection regime, notably the driver defect reporting system.
Martin Howell conceded that he had not spatted that the records were not being completed despite, in some cases, three-month gaps between inspection reports.
Suspending the licence for a month and halving the number of vehicles to seven trucks and four trailers. Dixon said: Had Martin Howell visited Dugmore two to three times per week and been checking the records properly, that might have been a satisfactory system.
"However, he was checking them rarely and not noticing the extended absence of records. His own statement is an indictment of a lack of control; I cannot agree that there was no systemic failure."
But he added that the present systems were largely satisfactory. Dixon also ordered that Terry Howell's licence be surrendered.