Midland Red driver had under 5 hrs rest
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• The Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Co. Ltd. (Midland Red) and 45 of its drivers were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling nearly £1,000 by Warley magistrates. at Smethwick, last week.
The busmen. from Harts Hill Garage, Brierley Hill. admitted 172 offences of driving contrary to Section 73(1) (iii) of the Road Traffic Act 1960—failing to have 10 hours rest in 24. They were fined a total of £344.
Midland Red admitted 172 offences of permitting employees to drive contrary to the same section of the Act and was fined a total of £516 with 75 guineas costs.
Mr. John Pugh, prosecuting on behalf of the MoT. said the offences came to the notice of the West Midland Traffic Commissioners when a letter from a union
branch secretary was published in the Birmingham Post. It alleged that drivers were allowed to work as much overtime as they wanted.
When Ministry examiners visited the garage to inspect time sheets it was apparent that offences had been carried out "on a wholesale scale". On one occasion a driver had only 4 hours 50 minutes rest. said Mr. Pugh. "One has only got to allow one's imagination to run wild to see what could happen to a double-deck bus with a tired driver."
Although he expressed sympathy for Midland Red in respect of its labour shortage he declared that: "One's sympathy must not be blinded by the potential danger to the public caused by the company when permitting the offences". Mr. William Gage, representing both Midland Red and its drivers, said that when the Ministry examiners began the checks last June. the company was suffering from a chronic labour shortage. It employed 2,554 drivers but at that time was 750 short. As a result 30,000 bus miles per week were lost.
The majority of the offences concerned stage services, he said, which were "infinitely less hazardous than long-distance express services".
There had never been any conscious transgression by the company. Mr Gage continued. The extra time worked by the drivers was not for financial reward alone, he said, but out of loyalty to the company and the public: meanwhile, Midland Red had intensified its recruiting campaign and was converting many routes to o-m-o.