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• by Mike Gordon A haulier has been called to
Page 7
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a public inquiry for driving away from a Vehicle Inspectorate test centre after he was issued with the highest enforceable lmmediate prohibition, a PG9.
John Vesper, the owner of Bedfordshire-based Vosper Transport, says: "I am furious that I was put in a position where I had to break the law." Vosper adds that he has never had a prohibition before in 28 years of operating.
Vosper employs the services of WC Commercials as the company's repair and maintenance contractor. On 5 December Clive Pratt. an employee of WC Commercials, drove one of Vosper's artics to the Leighton Buzzard test centre for its annual inspection. As part of the procedure the red suzie cable from the tractive unit to the trailer must be disconnected, and subsequently a brake diaphragm was ruptured.
Vosper says that Pratt tried to reason with the Vito make immediate on-site repairs, but permission for this was refused.
A spokeswoman for the VI says that when Vosper arrived on the scene he used strong language and that it was impossible to agree any solution—an allegation which Vosper vehemently denies.
The VI spokesperson adds: "We were not approached by anyone from the management side of the company. He [Vesper] just hurled abuse, got into the cab and drove off."
The VI wanted the vehicle towed away on a low-loader, but Vosper claims that this would have required notifying the police, the electricity board and the post office and would have taken days to arrange.
Instead, Vosper drove to the test centre himself, put a hose clamp on the air pipe to the front off-side chamber of the three-axle trailer and drove the vehicle away with what he stresses were five fully braking axles on the road, despite the PG9.
The VI claims that Pratt would have been allowed to repair the vehicle on site if he had signed a disclaimer for his own safety Pratt returned the vehicle to the test centre that same afternoon and it passed.