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Warn (pined at tacho inquiry
Page 16
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Cheshire haulage firm James Irlam & Son has escaped punishment at a public inquiry because it has its house in order. Mike Jewell reports.
HIGH-PROFILE haulage firm James Irlam & Sons has escaped with a warning at a public inquiry where it was called to answer for tacho and hours offences committed by its drivers.
The Chelford-based company holds a licence in the North-West for 101 vehicles and 133 trailers. It appeared before North Western Deputy Traffic Commissioner Elizabeth Perrett.
Traffic examiner Peter Illsley said analysis of 1,243 tachograph charts had shown a total of 916 infringements, with three drivers falsifying charts. He had found shortcomings in Irlam's systems and had made a number of recommendations. When he returned six months later he found that the company had responded and satisfactory systems were in place.
MD David Irlam said they operated around 220 vehicles, carrying food and drink into supermarkets. They had a network of depots, with journeys not normally longer than two hours. Prior to the investigation they had considered their systems robust.
The vehicles were doubleshifted and they had never needed to ask drivers to run illegally, he added. When the falsification was discovered the driver responsible was dismissed on the spot.
After the DTC had asked if there was a problem over timed deliveries, James Backhouse for Irlam, said that it had a tough system. If a driver was held up too long at the delivery point the vehicle was pulled out and the customer had to stand the cost of redelivery of the load.
Backhouse said this was an old case as the investigation had been over two years ago. He argued that any action taken against the licence would send out the wrong message as the problem had been solved 18 months ago.
The DTC said if the improved system had only recently been introduced she would have curtailed the licence to enable time for it to bed down. However, the system had been in place for some time now and seemed to be working.
Directing that a further check on the company's tachograph records should be carried out in 12 months' time, she warned that if there were similar problems in the future she could not rule out serious action being taken against the licence.