Bus was death-trap
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A DUMFRIESSHIRE school bus service has been reprieved by the Scottish Traffic Commissioners, despite a poor maintenance record which put lives at risk.
A. R. Smith, trading as 3mith Brothers of Dalbeattie, las still had his two public ;ervice vehicle licences -evoked, but this has been deayed to the end of June as the )usiness is in the process of )eing sold.
Chairman of the Commis;ioners Hugh Macnamara said that to ensure that the public were not placed in danger in the future, the decision would be conditional on Mr Smith offering his coaches for inspection each month at a heavy goods vehicle testing station. Any hint of a fault would then lead to immediate revocation.
Senior vehicle examiner Norman Cleghorn said Mr Smith had appeared before the Commissioners three times in the past because of poor maintenance.
As a result of a phone call from a member of the public regarding the condition of one of the vehicles a check was carried out. One vehicle was given an immediate suspension notice for brake and light defects, and the other a delayed suspension notice.
In August 1978 Mr Smith had undertaken to have the vehicles inspected each month by the Freight Transport Association and a commercial garage alternately. The commercial garage said that in fact it had not inspected the vehicles for some time and defects reported by the FTA in October had not been rectified by the vehicle examiner's inspection in November.
Vehicle examiner Malcolm McNab said the standard of maintenance was dangerously low. The front brakes of the vehicle given the immediate suspension notice were totally inoperant and the rear brakes could have failed at any time.
For Mr Smith, Mr L. Scott said the inspection arrangements had not been carried out in 1979 as Mr Smith had been away from the business for nine months because of injuries received in an accident, and because of staffing problems the garage had given drivers the brush-off.