No licence and car tax
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• Driving a truck without an WV driving licence, using a vehicle excise licence belonging to a private car in his truck and drivers hours and tachograph offences brought York haulier John Hall before North Eastern LA Keith Waterworth.
The LA cut the three-vehicle/ one-trailer licence held by Hall, trading as JW Hall Haulage, to one vehicle. He directed that it expire at the end of next August instead of at the end of August 1999 and warned that if there were further significant convictions for road traffic offences, Hall's outlook would be bleak.
Traffic examiner Ian Tucker said charts for one vehicle showed regular use between last November and April. It appeared Hall had no LGV driving entitlement, though he claimed to have grandfather rights.
Claiming that he had held an HGV driving licence in the past, Hall said he couldn't find his old licence after moving house. He thought the records had been lost when they were moved to Swansea from the Traffic Area. He agreed that he had still been driving when stopped in August, which was after he had been fined by magistrates for not having an WV driving licence. He said he thought that he was legal at the time. He had since employed an agency driver and was currently waiting to take an WV driving test.
Waterworth pointed out that Hall did not have the documents to demonstrate that he had "grandfather rights" when HGV driver licensing came in. After Hall had said his customers never asked whether he was properly licensed, Waterworth said it was a great pity that they weren't jointly liable.
Hall said a daily driving offence was committed after he had been held up by heavy snow and he had forgotten to note it on the back of the tachograph chart.
The LA commented that the charts showed speeds of up to 100km/h, which did not seem to suggest there was snow.
Convictions for falsifying a tachograph chart and taking insufficient weekly rest arose after he had loaded up on a Saturday when he had been let down by a driver, said Hall. The fraudulent use of the excise licence arose when he was wait ing for money to come in. He agreed that he had not declared the convictions when he renewed his licence and told the LA he must have forgotten.
Waterworth said Hall clearly had difficulty paying VED, though he did pay when chased. It was outrageous that he had driven without an LGV driving licence as it invalidated his insurance and that could have catastrophic consequences. Hall had to get a grip or leave the haulage industry. He was putting him on probation for a year to demonstrate that he had stopped breaking the driver's hours rules, that he was paying VED on time and that he had passed his WV driving test In reaching that decision, the LA said he had taken account of the fact that there were no maintenance problems.