IC amazed Fisher did not take care of charts
Page 21
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• A Wednesfield haulage company, which lost 12 months' tacho graph charts after the wife of a tachograph consultant threw them away with the household rubbish, has had its licence chopped by a third.
West Midland Traffic Commissioner John Mervyn Pugh has cut the authorisation on the licence held by Impexstone from 24 vehicles and 24 trailers to 16 vehicles and 16 trailers. The company had been tined £960 for 16 offences of failing to produce tachograph charts.
When the case came before the Commissioner in March, transport consultant Don Fisher, the VI's former West Midland enforcement manager, said he had picked up the charts from the company on a Friday afternoon using his wife's car. He left the cardboard box containing the charts in the boot over the weekend, intending to work on them on the Monday. On the Saturday morning his wife loaded the boot with rubbish and took it to the tip. (CM 13-19 March, and 8-14 May).
Expressing amazement that Fisher was not in court to hear his decision, Mervyn Pugh said it seemed extraordinary that Fisher, who was a highly respected member of VI for many years, should not take proper care of the tachograph charts.
The Commissioner said there was no point in any operator asking a consultant to analyse charts after they had been asked for by VI, and nor should any consultant take on such work. Pointing out that it was the duty of any operator to check tachograph charts, Mervyn Pugh said it was clear that Impexstone had not looked at its charts for 12 months.
Any application by the company for an increase in vehicle authorisation was unlikely to be favourably received for at least six months, said the Commissioner.