Tad° and hours neglect
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• Bradfordbased Connection Freight has had its nine vehicles and one trailer licence revoked through drivers hours and tachograph offences.
Revoking the licence, North Eastern Licensing Authority Frederick Whalley said there was nothing to prevent the company from making a fresh licence application. But interim authority to operate was unlikely to be granted unless and until the Vehicle Inspectorate had reported the company's vehicles were being properly maintained and there were procedures to prevent further hours and tachograph offences. The company had brought any commercial penalty resulting from his decision on its own head.
The company and six of its drivers were ordered to pay £7,045 in fines and costs in March after pleading guilty to a series of offences.
Senior Traffic Examiner Bryan Walscher said that following a complaint the company's tachograph charts for July to September 1991 were examined. On the 386 charts examined 229 offences were found. Some 32,000km could not be accounted for.
Director Charles Bancroft said he had been a nonexecutive director at the time. The director who ran the operations, who was now seriously ill, appeared with hindsight not to have done the required paperwork because he was too busy.
The picture painted before the magistrates, that the company had been in financial difficulty and drivers had committed the offences to maintain a lucrative contract obtained for the distribution of Opel parts, was untrue. The company had been in credit at the bank throughout and only four of the dates concerned coincided with journeys on the Opel contract.
Bancroft said that he was now involved full time with the company and it was using an outside tachograph agency.
Transport manager John Denker said the operation was now more profitable because of careful planning.
Whalley said the company had been guilty of gross neglect.