Driver is fined for hours and tachograph offences
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• Drivers' hours offences and the falsification of a tachograph record have cost a North Wales lorry driver £775 in fines and costs.
Mark Dowling, of Mold, admitted falsifying a chart, taking insufficient daily rest and exceeding the daily driving limit, when he appeared before Harwarden Magistrates.
Prosecuting for the DOT Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said that the offences came to light during a check on the tachograph records of Moldbased Ray Hughes Haulage. The records had been made to look as if there was a 30-hour gap between the two periods of driving, said Heaton, by simply changing the date on the centre field of a second tachograph chart, and by using a second chart.
In fact the driving had been done on the same day and Dowling had come nowhere near achieving a proper daily rest peri
od. He had driven for 13hr 10min and he had deliberately falsified the chart to cover that up, said Heaton. The prosecution considered this to be a particularly bad case, he added. Dowling was a foreman driver with Ray Hughes Haulage and road safety had clearly been jeopardised.
For Dowling, Jane Dawson said that he had a 13-year old son by his previous marriage who lived in Birmingham. He had committed these offences so that he could see his son as scheduled so he had fitted in an additional trip for that purpose. He had gained nothing financially and he had received a written warning from his employer.
The magistrates fined Dowling .£700 with £75 costs.
The hearing of a range of alleged drivers hours and tachograph offences against five other drivers employed by Ray Hughes Haulage has been adjourned until the end of September, along with allegations that the firm's proprietor, Raymond Hughes, permitted the alleged offences.