Driver is fined £900 for false tachograph chart
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• Drivers' hours offences and the falsification of a tachograph chart have cost a Manchester driver £900 in fines and casts. Stephen Wheyway, of Radcliffe, who drives for G Woodcock & Sons, denied falsifying a chart but was convicted by Oldham magistrates. He admitted five offences of driving excessive hours and taking insufficient rest and was fined .C800 with c£100 costs.
Allegations that the firm's proprietor, Geoffrey Woodcock, had permitted his drivers to commit drivers' hours offences were adjourned pending the outcome of a an appeal currently before the High Court in which a coach operator has appealed against convictions for permitting hours offences.
DOT traffic examiner Terence Brown said he had analysed three months charts obtained from the firm. There were two charts dated 4 October for the same vehicle, said Brown: one in Wheyway's name and the other in the name of Stephen Lowe. When interviewed, Wheyway had confirmed his suspicion that he had done all the driving on that day.
Denying that he had done all the driving, Wheyway said that Lowe was his son who sometimes accompanied him with Woodcock's permission. Asked whether Lowe received any money, Wheyway said that he would sometimes give him £20 at the end of the week if he was short.
Wheyway said they had dropped a trailer at Tonbridge and picked another trailer up, while Lowe said that it had been the same trailer throughout.