Triple A closes in-house workshop
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rogrerbrownidrbi.co.uk A PUBLIC INQUIRY has heard how a haulage firm took the "drastic" decision to close down its in-house maintenance operation after it was issued with a series of prohibition notices.
Paul Wiggins, VOSA vehicle examiner, told a hearing in Cambridge how Tilbury, Essexbased Triple A Transport picked up seven notices between 2004 and 2008.
These related to trucks with brake defects, as well as one with a loose wheel nut and another with a missing wing mirror.
According to Wiggins, four of
the seven notices could have been avoided if driver walk-round checks had been done correctly, In his investigation into the firm's maintenance procedures in June 2009, Wiggins found that the company's initial annual test pass rate was 53.29%. as opposed to the national average of 68.35%.
Triple A managing director Richard Newbold told the hearing: "We decided to take the decision to make our five workshop fitters redundant, close the operation down, and contract the work out to a third party.
"Things have been a lot better in the past two years. and we have had no new prohibition notices,
Newbold added that most of the vehicles that had been subject to the notices were now "long gone" from the fleet because the company had changed about 12 of its older trucks when the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) in London came into force in 2008.
lie said the firm carries out random checks on drivers to make sure they were performing their walk-round checks, and that when drivers reported defects, the information is properly filed.
Marcia Davis, the Eastern Deputy Traffic Commissioner, issued a formal warning to the company and said it needed to be "extremely proactive" in future in ensuring its 16 drivers perform their daily walk-round checks.
She told the hearing: "Even the smallest thing that goes wrong should not be minimalised."