Five-year driving ban
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• Alan Melvyn Eardley, the proprietor of Montego European, has been banned from operating coaches or driving coaches and lorries for five years. Two years ago his coach crashed in France, killing 11 people.
Eardley, of Avondale Close, Kingswinford was called before West Midland Traffic Commis sioner John Mervyn Pugh for a "horrendous catalogue" of offences including excess hours, insufficient rest, incorrect mode switches, missing mileage and defective tachographs.
Mervyn Pugh said that Eardley had driven for as long as 19hr 52min in a 24-hour period.
Questioned by Mervyn Pugh, Eardley said that he had never wound a tachograph clock back in his life. A number of charts had been lost. He did not drive for much over five hours without a break and had probably forgotten to swap the charts when a second driver took over. Most of the offences had been committed by drivers without his knowledge, he said. They were experienced drivers and he could not see how he could be held responsible.
The commissoner revoked Eardley's 0-licence and his PCV and LGV driving licences and said that there had been a wholesale disregard of the regulations. He could not remember hearing such a horrendous list in his six years as a Commissioner.
Mervyn Pugh expressed concern that while goods vehicle operators could be prosecuted within six months of either the commission of offences or within six months of them coming to the notice of the prosecuting authorities, PCV operators could only be prosecuted within six months of the offences being committed.
He also criticised the fact there was currently no machinery for prosecuting offences committed abroad, but pointed out that it did not prevent Commissioners taking action when such offences were discovered by checks on tachograph charts. He told Eardley: "I will do everything I can to protect the public from operators and drivers like you who flout the law."