No time to check hours
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• Oldham haulier Martin Darlington was fined £ 4,000 with £150 costs, after admitting that he allowed his drivers to drive excessive hours.
Darlington, trading as Martin Darlington Transport of Sheepfoot Lane, Royton, pleaded guilty to 30 offences of permitting drivers to exceed the daily driving limit; to drive for 4.5 hours without taking 45 minutes break; and to take insufficient daily rest. He also pleaded guilty to not using tachograph equipment in accordance with the regulations. Three drivers were fined for hours offences.
Darlington was prosecuted after one of his drivers was checked by Wiltshire Police. John Heaton, for the DOT, told Oldham Magistrates Court that Darlington either knew or shut his eyes to the fact that the drivers were repeatedly failing to comply with the hours legislation.
The firm sent its tachograph records for computer analysis, said Heaton, and when the analysis records were checked the offences were there to be seen. Drivers had driven for as long as 11 hours in a day, and for as long as seven hours 50 minutes with only one 18-minute break. On one occasion, a driver had driven for seven hours, covering 800km, without any recognisable break.
"The prosecution says Darlington was aware that records were being created that showed infringements and that he shut his eyes to their contents," said Heaton. He pointed out that the legislation exists to ensure that tired drivers are not behind the wheel of heavy trucks, to prevent drivers being exploited and to create a level commercial playing field.
Darlington told the court that the systern had been for his transport manager to examine the computer print-outs and explain any infringements to the drivers, who then signed the sheets. Soon after a new transport manager, Kevin Marshall, had been employed the company had won a contract with Toy Options of Oldham to deliver palletised cartons of toys. The contents were never correct and Toy Options stopped £5,000 of payments, which had still not received. The company started checking every pallet. "The amount of time involved was ridiculous," said Darlington. "As a result Kevin Marshall let other aspects of his duties slide and he failed to go through the analysis sheets with the drivers as he should have done."
They had since employed a warehouse manager and the system was now being operated properly, said Darlington.
For the company, Charles Stansfield said that he had been in the haulage business for 25 years. He had an excellent record and this was the first time he had been in any trouble. Had the system continued to operate properly during the period concerned, the drivers would not have been allowed to have become as lax as they did.