Tacho sham puts fleet off road
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The falsification of tachograph records by drivers employed by Martin Jolly Transport, of Newton Stewart, Dumfries &f, Galloway, while working as subcontractors for Hayton Coulthard has led to the revocation of the company's 22-vehicle licence. Managing director Martin Jolly was disqualified from holding a licence for three years; his sons, Tom and Lee, were disqualified for two years.
Scottish Traffic Commissioner Michael Betts said the company had appeared content to abdicate its responsibility for the vehicles subcontracted to Hayton Coulthard. It had no idea what its drivers were doing—or, if it did, it had turned a blind eye.
The TO added that it could not be acceptable for an operator to hide behind someone else who was using a significant proportion of his vehicles and dri vers. If that was allowed there would be no-one to pin down responsibility on operators and drivers, with a horrendous risk to road safety.
If an operator chose to wad( for another, he must still exercise total control over his vehicles and drivers, Betts warned.
Deciding that Jolly had lost his repute as a transport manager, the TO said he was satisfied that Jolly knew, at least in general terms, what was going on.
He found it difficult to believe that Jolly and his sons did not know of the widespread abuse of the hours rules by the drivers on the Hayton Coulthard work— particularly as one of the offenders was Lee Jolly,
The TC also took action against four other Hayton Coulthard subcontractors:
• The two-vehicle licence held by Ian Alexander Transport, of Lockerbie, was suspended for four weeks.
• The licence held by Robert Jardine, of Castle Douglas, was cut from
two vehicles and three trailers to one vehicle and three trailers for three weeks, and Jardine's HGV driving licence was suspended for two weeks.
• The licence held by Stranraer-based DK Millar & Son was cut from four vehicles and four trailers to two vehicles and four trailers for six weeks.
• The licence held by Castle Douglasbased J&D Goldie was cut from three vehicles and three trailers to one vehicle and three trailers for four weeks.
Betts accepted the surrender of the licence held by Steel! McKie, of Stranraer.
The cases resulted from Operation Oulton—a joint investigation between the police and the Vehicle Inspectorate. It was launched after allegations were made during the trial of Kirkpatrick Flemingbased haulier Kenny Williamson that work allocated by Hayton Coulthard to subcontractors could not be done legally.
The TO also imposed two-week suspensions on the HGV driving licences held by 29 drivers employed by the firms and by Hayton Coulthard itself. They had all been convicted of falsifying tachograph records.