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Wheeler fined for hours
Page 26
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• Fiddling tachograph charts, and other offences, led to Bridgwater-based Wheeler & Son and 10 of its drivers being ordered to pay fines and costs of £8,215.
The company admitted 23 offences of causing drivers to to make false entries in tachograph charts; 15 offences of failing to retain tachograph charts for 12 months; and three offences of permitting a standard class driver to drive an HGV. It was fined a total of £4,350, with £1,550 costs.
Prosecuting for the Western Traffic Area, Edward Lyons said that traffic examiners visited the company's premises in December 1988, and removed a number of charts. Later, a large number of charts were seized which when examined showed there were no records for about 45,000km (28,000 miles) covered by vehicles between September 1988 and February 1989. A large number of the offences arose when drivers were delayed at British Gypsum premises. To make up time they had fiddled their tachograph charts by pulling fuses, winding the clock back, running with the tachograph head open, or by inserting false names.
Wheeler's was a small family company which had been in some financial difficulty. By adopting a bonus scheme based on the earnings of vehicles, the company had effectively invited the falsification of charts. Defending, Charles Clifford said the missing charts all related to one vehicle. It was not a case of hiding records to cover inconsistencies. The charts were put together in batches for each vehicle, and something like 1% went missing due to human error.
The falsification of tachograph charts went undiscovered following a change in the chart-checking system in 1988. The company had previously employed someone to analyse the charts.