Three toppled trailers see company hauled before OTC
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A North Yorkshire firm has peen hauled before North Eastern Deputy Traffic Commissioner Mark Hinchliffe after three of its trailers overturned within four months.
Richmond-based George W Barker holds a restricted licence for four vehicles and four trailers. For the company, Paul Carless argued that the vehicles concerned were "agricultural tractors" and the company should never have had an 0-licence in the first place. They were running on red diesel, were taxed as agricultural vehicles and were driven by people who did not hold HGV licences.
PC Brierley of West Yorkshire Police said that in June he was called to the scene of an accident, in which a tank trailer carrying
waste ale from the Tetley Brewery in Leeds to a pig-farm had overturned on a roundabout. The twin-axled trailer was being towed by a Volvo tractive unit through a 'pin and eye attachment as the fifth wheel had been removed.
PC Place of North Yorkshire Police said that on 16 October he attended a road traffic accident on a roundabout on the Al at Dishforth. A Volvo tractive unit had been towing a trailer carrying a skip; both were lying on their side in the road after the towing loop of the trailer had sheered along the weld line.
Vehicle examiner Carl Hunt said that on 31 October he attended an accident involving the same combination. The Volvo tractor was parked at the side of the carriageway and a drawbar trailer carrying a skip had overturned after the nearside wheels had become detached. The company was subsequently convicted of using a dangerous vehicle.
Drivers had told him that they made regular trips to Gateshead and Leeds, round trips of around 120 miles, said Hunt. Six prohibitions had been issued to the company's vehicles and trailers since October, including an immediate prohibition issued to a trailer for a deformed trailer coupling.
Carless maintained the incidents had arisen through the actions of a maverick driver who was no longer with the company.
The hearing was adjourned until a later date. The company offered to surrender the licence, but the DTC felt it was in the public interest that the legal status of the vehicles be resolved.