A Lancashire tipper operator who railed to properly tax and
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insure his i:ehicles because he was short of money has lost his 0-licence and HGV driving licence, and has been disqualified from holding an 0-licence for three years.
Leigh-based James Bowman, who held a licence for one vehicle, had been called before North Western Deputy Traffic Commissioner Mark Hinchliffe.
The DTC said that Bowman had been convicted of 10 offences by the Leigh magistrates in February and was ordered to pay fines, costs and back duty of 21,749. The first group of offences were discovered when a vehicle carrying stone was stopped by police in September while driven by a Keith Owen, who was not insured to drive it. The vehicle was taxed at the private rate of E100 and was found to have a long-standing brake defect.
A week later a second vehicle was used which was not on the 0-licence and was not properly taxed or insured. In October Bowman had failed to produce tachograph records and a van was found to be uninsured and untaxed. The authorised vehicle was again found to be taxed at the wrong rate some three weeks after first being stopped.
Bowman said the authorised vehicle was insured for him to drive. He had asked that Owen be insured to drive it for one day, but unbeknown to him the insurance document was falsified. Bulk Tippers Cheshire, which he worked for at the time, had now agreed to pay him on a weekly basis and had funded the road tax for him, making weekly deductions to cover it.
Revoking the licences, the DTC remarked that a tipper loaded with stone with significantly defective brakes was a lethal combination—and if there had been an accident there would have been no insurance. The nature of Bowman's conduct, his repeated decisions to flout the law and the irresponsible way he ran his business meant that revocation was the only appropriate course. The DTC also decided that his conduct made Bowman unfit to hold an HGV driving licence, concluding: "I take such a dim view of the events of September and October last year that I think disqualification is appropriate."