Put your house in order, warns Bell
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Freight forwarder Associated Haulage (Liverpool) has been given until the beginning of the year to put its house in order ur lace having its licence revoked.
North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell had been considering disciplinary action against the company's two-vehicle licence, together with its application to increase the licence to three vehicles and one trailer.
Vehicle examiner Peter Turner said the company had been sent a warning letter following an unsatisfactory maintenance investigation in December 1999. When he visited the company again in August, inspection records were still not being properly completed, the wall planner lacked detail and drivers were reporting defects orally After it was said that managing director and transport manager Paul Clarke had obtained his CPC through "grandfather rights", the TC said her view was that it was a piece of paper and not worth much more. She was more interested in how the obligations were being fulfilled.
For the company, transport consultant Richard Harris said Clarke accepted his weaknesses in skills and knowledge. His firm would be training the company's staff in driver defect reporting and checks and drivers' hours and tachographs.
Clarke said the two people who had been employed to look after the transport side had been dismissed, and another member of staff, Michael O'Regan, was to be put through the tachograph examination. "I was shocked and amazed at it all," said Clarke. "It is the running of the vehicles that has let us down in the past. I never did what I should have done, as I did not realise the Importance of it all."
Admitting he had not yet organised the CPC examination for O'Regan, Clarke said he himself would have to take charge until then. Asked who checked the tachograph records. Clarke replied: 'Well, I leave it to the drivers." He admitted that tachograph charts were merely filed, and that he did not really know what the drivers' hours limits were.
Harris said the solution was to get the new transport manager trained and proper systems put in place.
Adjourning the hearing until the beginning of January the TC said she would have been justified in revoking the licence, but she had been assured that matters would be put right and was prepared to give Clarke one last chance to put his house in order. On the next occasion she would expect to see that arrangements had been made for the transport manager to have proper and effective control over the transport.