Quarry pressure induced drivers to falsify tachos
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Lancashire owner-driver Christopher Kavanagh, one of a number of drivers convicted of falsifying tachograph records while working out of the Tarmac Quarry at atheroe, has had his HOV driving licence suspended for three weeks.
Whalley-based Kavanagh appeared before North Western Traffic
Comm
issioner Beverley Bell at a Wigan public inquiry after Blackburn magistrates convicted him of six offences of falsification and one of taking insufficient daily rest.
For Kavanagh, Michael Cunningham said: "I say again what I told the court—the local management at Clitheroe put their owner
-11w drivers under considerable pressure. Owner-drivers were told their vehicles would be required on a Saturday or Sunday after a full week's work with as little as two hours' notice.
"By that time it was too late to get another driver," he added. "They were under threat from Tarmac that if they did not do it a Skipton firm would take the work. Those drivers who did not turn out at the weekend at whatever notice did not get much work the following week. I accepted then and I accept now that it was very much local man agement—the board generally did not know what was going on."
Kavanagh said that he had gained nothing financially from the offences. "I made a mistake," he added. "I was under pressure at the time. It won't happen again, definitely. It was the weighbridge that was running the job, not the management."
"It is fair to say that things have changed at the quarry," said Kavanagh. 'They row inform me on a Thursday night if the venIcle is required for weekend work and the Skipton firm is no longer at the quarry, have discussed it with my wife and she said I was an idiot, a fool. I deeply regret what I have done and I would not do it again. If I was under pressure I would still not do it again."
Suspending Kavanagh's licence, the TC said she took a hard line over tachograph falsification but in the wholly exceptional circumstances of the present case she was prepared to be lenient. She took account of Kavanagh's previous unblernished record going back 25 years and the pressure he had been put under by Tarmac.