CASE TWO
Page 14
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Injured boss operator has licence revoked
ECOSSE International Transport has had its O-licence revoked after drivers were discovered to have committed hours breaches following the incapacitation of the irm’s director from a road accident.
In a written decision following a public inquiry in Edinburgh in December 2011 and January 2012, Joan Aitken, trafic commissioner (TC) for Scotland, also disqualiied the Kilmarnockbased irm and its director and transport manager Jimmy Ferguson for six months.
In October 2009 Ecosse was granted a standard international O-licence for three vehicles and the same number of trailers.
However, in December that year, Ferguson was involved in a road accident on the A11 when he had to swerve to avoid a man trying to commit suicide, with the result that he hit the central reservation, the vehicle overturned and the load of pigs had been shed.
He was in hospital for two months after the accident – for which he was blameless – and was on a heavy dosage of morphine for pain relief.
Vosa’s interest in Ecosse started by chance in March 2010 when oficers stopped one of the company’s trade plated artics pulling timber in Kilmarnock. A trafic examiner saw that the vehicles appeared to be operating out of the Cheale Meats facility in Brentwood, Essex, and only very occasionally returning to Renfrew, which was the declared operating centre.
The examiner analysed 63 tachograph record sheets for the period 8 February to 21 March 2010 and found 12 false records where drivers had failed to record periods of driving or duty time. He also found that a driver had falsiied his tachograph record sheets to conceal a daily driving offence and weekly rest offence.
Ecosse had also failed to notify the TC’s ofice about the resignation of one of its directors, David Connor, in May 2011.
Serious offences
Although the director had been left incapacitated following a serious accident, the TC believed the offences were serious enough to warrant revocation and disqualification.