Company and drivers fined
Page 14
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DRIVERS' hours offences cost Lancashire haulier H. Nuttall and Sons Ltd and 13 of the company's drivers a total of .$:2,125 in fines and Costs when they appeared before the Oldham magistrates.
Twelve of the drivers admitted exceeding the permitted continuous driving, daily driving and spread-over limits and one driver, Adrian Traynor, admitted making a false entry in a tachograph record.
The company of Canal Street, Haywood, denied 23 offences of permitting drivers to exceed the hours limits.
Christopher Worthy, presecuting for the North Western Licensing Authority, said that the drivers' hours regulations were designed to prevent drivers from working while suffering from fatigue.
Eric Finnerty, the company's traffic controller, said that he had been taken unexpectedly and seriously ill last June, and was off work for five months. Defending, Jonathon Lawton said that in the recent case of the Metropolitan Licensing Authority v Patrick Coggins, the Divisional Court had ruled that where a haulier was charged with permitting hours offences, the prosecution had to prove knowledge on the part of the defendant.
He argued that there was no evidence of permitting in the present case.
The company had 21 days in which to examine the tachograph charts.
The offences had taken place over a short period of time. I-Living regard to the sudden removal of the experienced traffic controller, the company could not be said to have failed in its duty in that short time.
Twenty-three offences discovered out of 1,500 charts checked by the traffic examiner — 1.7 per cent — was not evidence of a massive disinterest in drivers' records, particularly as in the majority of cases they were talking about 20 to 30 minutes in excess of the permitted limits.
The magistrates found the case against the company proved. They fined the com pany £50 per offence, a total of 0,150 and ordered it to pay S."275 towards the cost of the prosection.
The drivers were Mr Traynor fined £50 with .£5 costs, Derek Fardoe fined £75 on three hours offences with £5 costs, Ralph Jones fined £25 on one hours offence with £5 costs, Alfred Lyons fined £25 on one hours offence with £5 costs, Francis Haywood fined £100 on four hours offences with £5 costs, Stephen Greenwood fined £50 on two hours offences with £5 costs, Colin Smith fined £25 on one hours offence with £5 costs, Terrence Lockett fined £25 on one hours offence with £5 costs, Ian Wood fined £100 on four hours offences with £10 costs, Anthony Winton fined £25 on one hours offence with .£5 costs, Terrence Maher fined £25 on one hours offence with £5 costs, Anthony Kud ray fined £50 on one hours offence and one offence of failing to keep his tachograph running with £5 costs, and Ray Finnerty fined £50 on two hours offences with £5 costs.