Febry Face 330 Counts Under Section 19
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FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT CHIPPING SODBIJ RY, Tuesday.
AFTER a whole day's hearing here today, the magistrates adjourned until Monday consideration of 330 summonses under Section 19 of
. the Road Traffic Act, 1930, against Messrs. R. and W. Febry, Chipping Sodbury. Mr. R. F. P. Holloway, prosecuting, said that traffic inspectors had been specially posted between Birmingham and South Wales to keep watch on Febry's vehicles.
Thirty-eight of the firm's drivers were also charged with failure to keep current records during a certain week last June.
The summonses against the firm, who were said to be holders of 80 A licences, alleged that they had failed to cause records to be kept and permitted drivers to exceed their statutory hours of work. Each vehicle, said Mr. Holloway, was checked by two of the traffic inspectors.
As a result of those checks, he said, it was abundantly clear that the drivers were not only keeping wrong records, but that they had, in fact, exceeded the statutory hours of work "very considerably." One driver, who reported that he had finished work at 5.30 p.m., was, in fact, checked by the traffic inspector when going through Cirencester at 8.43 p.m.
When questioned, the driver replied: "We check in and check out at any hour of the day or night."
When Mr. Richard Febry was questioned about this, said Mr. Holloway, he replied: "No comment. There is no check on drivers returning after 8 p.m. until the following morning."
He added: "We do all we can to see that proper records are kept, and to see that drivers do not break the rules. We call round occasionally and warn them against excessive hours, and some drivers have been sacked for doing so."
It was stated that a warning notice had also been posted up at headquarters about the necessity of keeping correct records.
Mr. L. R. Beattie, a senior traffic inspector, gave evidence that some drivers had only 8-1, hours or less rest in the course of 24 hours. Some had driven 15, 16 or 17 hours in a day.
Another traffic inspector admitted, in evidence, that when he questioned one driver about his excessive working hours, the man replied: "All I have done I have done off my own bat. I have been previously warned by the firm about this.
After further evidence had been given about warnings to drivers, Mr. Holloway observed that the defence might ask whether the employers should sack them. "My reply to that is yes," he said.
Mr. James Bull, of the Zenith Insurance Co., told Mr. T. D. Corpe, defending, that all Febry's vehicles were insured with . Zenith. No third-party claims had ever been made in respect of any of them, and no claim had been made regarding accidents because of excessive hours.