Tub check complaint
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• Pershore haulier Ian Moutrie has complained about the number of times his firm's tachograph charts have been checked by DOT traffic examiners following a fatal accident.
Moutrie appeared at a Birmingham public inquiry before West Midland LA John Mervyn Pugh, who was considering taking action against the 15-vehicle 0-licence held by Moutrie's firm Manor Farms Haulage.
The LA also considered action against the HGV driving licences of two of the company's drivers. One of them was convicted of taking insufficient weekly rest and the other had been seen to be speeding in Salisbury.
For the firm, Michael Carless said that during the first investigation only eight offences by drivers were revealed out of the analysis of 696 tachograph charts. Charges that the firm permitted those offences were dropped. A similar number of charts were been examined on two further occasions and there had been absolutely nothing wrong. Consequently, Moutrie wondered why they were at a public inquiry.
Moutrie said that after the accident in which one of the firm's drivers was killed, 90 of the driver's charts were examined and nothing was found to be wrong. He could not understand why the traffic examiners kept coming back every couple of months Taking no action against the firm, Mervyn Pugh said that the issue of enforcement becomes very emotive following fatal accidents. The VI did the firm a service as he was satisfied that their tachograph charts were Al and that their drivers were complying with the law. Moutrie must forget the fact that he thought the VI was prejudiced. The investigations began because of the death of a driver and then subsequently another of the firm's drivers was seen zooming around in Salisbury".
Severely warning the two drivers, the LA said it would be grossly unfair to take action against the driver convicted of the weekly rest offence when he was unable to take action against the other convicted drivers as they were not HGV driving licence holders. Neither did he feel justice would be served by suspending the licence of the driver seen in Salisbury.