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oor maintenance
IF an operator employs a commercial garage to Lain his coaches, the operator himself is still fully responsDr the condition of his vehicles.
airman of the Southm.n Traffic Commisn-s, Randall Thornton, aasised this point to am Brough, proprietor of )pets of Wimbourne, a Dorset coach company, ag a public sitting in hampton last week.
Thornton said that gh had been called to the c sitting because of "the idable number of prohibiand .defect notices" his aes had collected. Vehicle niner Donald Sergeant the Commissioners of of the defects that had found during a fleet in:ion last October.
well as his own three Brough then had on :wo other Ford 53-seaters and R registration. These comparatively modern aes had attracted five psv ohibition notices for such s as excess play in the .ing, cut tyre wall, low ,ng brake efficiency and a hose so short that it was thing on full lock.
3ugh's solicitor, Andrew land, told the Commis!rs that Brough had since rned these two hired ries and the fleet was back Lree — "a more managenumber". The vehicle examiner had revisited the fleet on February 8 this year and the two coaches and one minibus had still collected a number of defect advisory notices and an immediate prohibition notice.
Mr Maitland said that Brough had entrusted all his maintenance to a local commercial garage, except some minor work done by a parttime fitter.
Sometimes the garage would take the coaches direct from its own workshops to the vehicle examiner for the fleet inspection but they still failed.
Mr Brough himself said that the garage did not give him any form of maintenance schedule or checklist — he had totally trusted the garage.
Proposing to improve matters, Mr Maitland said that Brough was changing his garage and had contracted another one to carry out maintenance at eight-weekly intervals. Mr Sergeant said he would also like a mileage interval included and the figure of three thousand miles was suggested.
The Traffic Commissioners said they were "clearly not called to put Mr Brough out of business". They decided to suspend the psv licence of one of the coaches for six months. At the end of this period the vehicle examiner would make a further fleet inspection to ensure that the new maintenenace arrangements were working.
Mr Thornton urged Mr Brough to get completed, signed and dated maintenance checkshe.e.ts in future.