Driver who tried to please boss is fined
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• A Suffolk driver who claimed he had broken the 4.5-hour driving rule and falsified a tachograph record to make a good impression "on the governor" has been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £500 by Macclesfield magistrates, Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said this was a case of an alert traffic examiner catching a driver redhanded for a drivers' hours offence and a false record which had been created in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the hours offence. Rickie Barham, an employee of Power Favour, trading as Scorpion Freight, of Mendlesham, was stopped in a routine check at Rostherne while driving a Volvo artic.
The chart he produced for that day showed a journey starting at Felixstowe. The distance trace showed that he had driven for 295km with a driving time of four hours. Felixstowe was considerably more than 295km from Rostherne, said Heaton.
When interviewed Barham admitted falsifying the record to cover up the fact that he had had insufficient break after 45 hours driving.
He said he had pulled the fuse and had kept on going. When cautioned, Barham had said: "Bad move. The job's got to be done and I'm already four hours late."
Barham, of Yaxley, Eye, said that when he committed the offences he had recently got a new job and had been "trying to make an impression on the governor".
The magistrates fined him £2011 for the false record and £250 for the 4.5-hour driving offence with £50 costs.