Exmoor work takes toll
Page 19
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The licence of Tiverton-based haulier Geoffrey Brown was curtailed for one month as a result of convictions and prohibition notices.
Brown, before Western Traffic Commissioner Philip Brown at a Bristol disciplinary inquiry, blamed his record on the strenuous work his vehicles did on Exmoor.
The TC restricted the licence from five vehicles and five trailers to three vehicles and three trailers, the curtailment to be completed by the end of October.
Vehicle examiner Andrew Dare said two vehicles and two trailers were examined in June and two defect notices were issued. Brown's vehicles were experiencing brake problems and the standard of maintenance appeared to have dropped between September 1999 and April 2000 when five of the seven prohibition notices had been issued.
Traffic examiner Allison Tipper said Brown had been convicted of overloading: failing to have a two-yearty tachograph calibration check; and allowing a driver to drive a drawbar combination when not properly licensed to do so.
She described what she considered to be "suspicious" endings on the speed traces of tachograph charts, dropping from motorway type speeds to zero at the end of the day.
"I thought this strange because the vehicles would have to drive slowly down the lane, at a lower speed, to get back to the operating centre at the end of the day," she said.
Investigations were continuing into the tachograph chart usage, said Tipper.
Brown said he dealt mainly in agricuttural haulage and a lot of the brake problems were due to the drivers working up and down the hills of Exmoor.
He had believed that the driver of the drawbar trailer combination was entitled to drive Et. It was only when the driver was stopped for overloading that the driving offence came to light.
He had employed the services of a former traffic examiner to check the tachograph records and he had invested in new equipment for the business.