Horse and cart solution
Page 16
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• Maintenance problems encountered by Glasgow based George Lindsay & Sons (Haulage) might be solved if it reverted to the horse and carts used when the business started, Scottish Deputy Traffic Commissioner Alan Worthington has suggested.
Walter Brown, of the Vehicle Inspectorate, told a disciplinary inquiry that the company held a licence for 16 vehicles and six trailers. Since June 1988 the vehicles and trailers had attracted 10 immediate and seven delayed prohibitions, plus three variation notices. Six of the prohibitions had been endorsed "neglect".
A vehicle and trailer inspected at the request of the police following an accident in October 1991 were both given immediate prohi bitions for serious brake defects. The vehicle and trailer had turned over: the driver reported that the brakes had failed.
For the company, Michael Whiteford said that in nearly 90 years this was the first time it had appeared at public inquiry Since a maintenance investigation in May the senior mechanic had been replaced, the inspection periods reduced, and the Freight Transport Association was to inspect the vehicles quarterly. The vehicle involved in the accident had come from England without the driver complaining about the brakes.
After director James Lindsay
said that his father had started the business in 1903 with a horse and cart, Worthington said: "You would not have these problems if you still had horses!"
Giving the company a final warning, Worthington said he required written undertakings con cerning the reduction in the inspection period and that the company's drivers and mechanics would receive written instructions on the completion of drivers' defect reports and preventative maintenance inspection records.