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Cost of suspension made LA think again
Page 20
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A MATLOCK haulier, Michael Thomas, was allowed to keep two vehicles out of three on his licence after the East Midland LA was persuaded that it would be more expensive for him to lose a vehicle — because he would have had to pay his driver £1,000 redundancy money. This, said LA C. M. Sheridan, would reduce the efficiency of his maintenance.
Mr Thomas was appearing at disciplinary proceedings at Nottingham on March 9, and the LA said he had been warned, following an immediate prohibition in 1974. Since then, there had been prohibitions in 1976 and 1977, and a further immediate prohibition, in June, 1978.
Vehicle examiner Gordon Hulley said although Mr Thomas's premises were adequate in size and lay-out, there was no electricity. He imposed prohibitions on the other two vehicles and it might be that the lack of electric light was leading to defects being missed.
In evidence, Mr Thomas said the vehicle given the immediate prohibition had been in a good condition when it left on its journey. He did not know whether the brake-pipe had broken during the journey, was broken by the driver, or whether the driver had been flogging the vehicle. After Mr Thomas had also blamed the driver for the 1974 prohibition, Mr Sheridan said many of the defects on the prohibitions were for wear or loose parts. That was not the driver's fault — it sounded as if inspections were not being done properly.
Mr Thomas said his landlord was supposed to put electricity in but was not interested, so, for the moment, he had purchased a small generator. He had started with one vehicle and as the business had expanded, he had started worrying more about the traffic side than the maintenance.
It was his intention to go back to being an owner-driver, keeping a second vehicle as a spare.
At that stage, Mr Sheridan curtailed the licence to on vehicle, saying he would have to see how things went in the future. Inspections had to be effectiveand he would instruct the vehicle examiner to carry out a further check in the near future. He could not allow the kind of defects found to continue, in Mr Thomas's interest as well as that of public safety.
Half an hour later Mr Thomas returned to court and told the LA that he would have to make the driver he presently employed redundant. He had employed him for some eight years and the driver had been to his local union office, who had said it would cost him around £1,000 in redundancy payment if he dismissed him. In the circumstances, he would rather keep him on and he asked the LA to reconsider his decision.
Altering his decision to leave two vehicles on the licence, Mr Sheridan said he would not achieve a better maintenance situation if he put Mr Thomas in a worse financial position.