Operator lacked preventive maintenance
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A A MacDonald Contractors (Benbecula)
• The imposition of prohibition notices on vehicles operated by A A MacDonald Contractors (Benbecula) Ltd has led Scottish Licensing Authority Hugh McNamara to cut the authorisation on the company's licence from 12 vehicles and four trailers, to four vehicles and two trailers.
The LA was told that the company's vehicles were exempt from plating and testing as they were used only in connection with its own business of civil engineering contracting on the island. A vehicle examiner had carried out a fleet check, giving the company a week's notice, yet all three vehicles examined were given immediate prohibitions endorsed "neglect". The defects found indicated a complete lack of preventive maintenance.
For the company, it was said that all three vehicles were off the road and out of service at the time. The company was aware they were defective and was awaiting spare parts from the mainland.
Director Angus MacDonald said that he felt that he had left too much to the mechanic employed at the time. Two mechanics were now employed to look after the three vehicles and 34 items of plant in possession. His brother had been brought in to look after the civil engineering side, leaving him time to concentrate on supervising the mechanics. He now checked the vehicles personally before they went on the road after the mechanics had worked on them, and the FTA had been brought in to monitor the condition of the vehicles every 12 weeks.
The vehicles operated on site and the condition of the island roads did not help maintenance. No way would he have operated vehicles in the condition the vehicle examiner found them.
MacDonald agreed that the vehicles had been working on site and that they had been driven on the road to get them back to the garage in that condition.
MacNamara said that it was stretching his credulity to ask him to believe that the whole fleet was off the road at the same time, and that it was a coincidence that at a week's notice the vehicle examiner went along and got a kill rate of three immediate prohibitions out of three. It was an offence to have vehicles like that on the road, even on Benbecula.
Directing that the vehicle examiner carry out a further check within 12 months, MacNamara said the company was going to be in serious trouble if all the promises made had not been fulfilled.