1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152 
Over the years, CM's legal pages have contained some entertaining
Page 52
Page 53
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
land implausible) excuses from hauliers facing the beak or a public inquiry. Who says truckers can't think outside the box?
Words: Patric Cunnane What does a haulier do when faced with a summons to a magistrates' court or a public inquiry to defend allegations of wrongdoing?
The initial reaction is the understandable human one of panic. Once panic subsides, creative thinking sets in.
Trawling through the pages of past CMs has revealed some surprising—and often funny—defences and excuses. In some cases, the responses of Traffic Commissioners or judges have in themselves been entertaining as they strive to hide their incredulity or mirth at what they are hearing.
One of the most well-worn categories must surely be the tendency to blame the wife or girlfriend. But be warned — however chauvinist the judge appears to he, this tactic has been known to fail. For example, a tipperman claimed he did not know where his tachograph charts were, but thought his girlfriend had accidentally destroyed them while decorating. He was tined £300 plus £50 costs and given a six-month driving ban.
Even less successful was the driver who blamed his excess hours on the need to get home early because his marriage was in trouble. Who says romance is dead? The judge was unmoved and handed out a fine of f3,655.
What about children? Why not use them as an excuse? One driver thought he would, and claimed he had wound his tachograph clock on so he could get home for his daughter's birthday party. Too bad. An unsentimental judge fined him £720 for this and other tachograph offences. Think how much jelly and ice cream that could have bought...
Sometimes men get put in their place by their better (and more successful) other halves.
A woman accused of being a front for her husband, whose 0-licence had been revoked, said the accusation was untrue. She simply wanted to be more than a -lollipop lady" now that her youngest child had started high school. She agreed she would not allow her husband to do anything more than minor repairs and escaped with a formal warning.
When not blaming their wives or girlfriends, tacho fiddlers have been known to seek the sympathy vote. In 1999, three tippermen said they falsified records because they had not had a rate increase since 1972 (yes, 27 years!). Worth a try perhaps, but they were each fined £1,200 with £200 costs.
An ingenious defence Of course, there are a number of cases where the gods of fortune smile and the operator does win their day in court or at public inquiry. Having an ingenious defence or a good transport lawyer can help with this.
A heavy haulier was summoned for overloading and failing to notify the authorities of the movement of an abnormal load. The defence successfully blamed a faulty fax machine, claiming that notifications were sent, but the clerk using it had no way of knowing if they were not received. The result? An absolute discharge.
Another good heavy haulage yarn involves the army being blamed for a haulier's overloading offence. It seems the haulier had transported a military tank and was convicted for overloading. At the appeal, the judge quashed the conviction after accepting evidence that the army had loaded the tank too far forward.
A waste carrier won an 0-licence for 10 vehicles
despite operating without one for four years. The licence came with a string of environmental conditions after the TC heard complaints from neighbouring businesses about "intolerable" noise and pollution, including rats coming from the site and drains blocked by refuse from the haulier's premises.
A haulier whose truck ran away down a hill and into a parked car received an absolute discharge. His defence successfully argued that the brakes were regularly checked as part of a maintenance schedule and had simply gone out ofadjustment. The fault would have been picked up at the next check.
Of course, there are a whole series of cases that defy easy categorisation, but are bound to force a wry smile from a
driver reading CM in a motorway service station.
One inquiry heard an allegation that half the drivers in Liverpool were using red diesel. Did someone at the back mutter "only half?'.'
A milk haulier had no 0-licence because he believed the transport of milk was exempt from the regulations. There is an exemption — but it only applies to door-todoor deliveries. The operator was fined 11,455 plus costs, the price of a fair few milk shakes.
A company had its 0-licence revoked after it was revealed that it was running an offshore business on a British 0-licence, Sounds simple enough.
But wait, the operating centre was in the Midlands: its registered address was in Gibraltar and its correspondence address was in Cornwall.
To add to the confusion, the business was run by a British national living in Portugal. All this effort for how many vehicles? A fleet of three, yes, just three! A fork-lift instructor was fined £100 for teaching truck driving despite not holding an HGV licence. But was he any good? Well, his first pupil passed the NOV. test first time after just four days' training.
An operator was fined £15,600 for drivers' hours offences — a very heavy fine now, never mind 10 years ago when the transgressions took place. It responded by introducing quizzes and bonus payments to bring its drivers up to speed with the regulations. The words 'stable door', horse' and 'bolted' swiftly spring to mind.
Compassionate grounds
Given the above, some may think a container operator who racked up 36 prohibitions in five years got off lightly The Deputy TC said the firm's record had been "quite dreadful" — and suspended one truck for 14 days.
TCs and DTCs do sometimes show compassion. An operator whose 0-licence had been suspended got it back temporarily, so that it could bring its trucks back from the Continent before going into liquidation.
A driver from another firm who dealt with a mechanical fault in a novel way received little sympathy from his employer. He had tied a rope round an axle after an airbag burst so that he could get his truck home from the Continent. He was sacked and his boss fined I:400.
We've already looked at the tendency to blame the wife or girlfriend for life's troubles, but its worth remembering that in 1998, during the early days of Tony Blair's New Labour government, it ruled out including road transport in the Working-lime Directive. However, it did say that the industry would eventually be included. Yes, you've guessed it. a "daughter directive" was promised. •