Driver jailed for fiddling with hours
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By Roger Brown
AN OWNER-DRIVER who iddled his drivers’ hours records by using the name of a former employee has been jailed for 30 weeks.
Mold Crown Court was told how Wrexham-based Andrew Clorley, 48, who traded as A Clorley Transport, admitted louting tachograph regulations on 11 occasions, by using a fresh sheet in the name of Eric Groves, a driver who had left the business.
At the time of the offences, Groves was not in the UK.
Clorley regularly drove his 44tonne artic loaded with chipboard from Kronospan at Chirk down the A470 to south Wales. However, a VOSA investigation found that on seven occasions he had driven more than 13 hours a day when the limit was nine.
He also failed to take the required daily rests.
On one of the days, Clorley had driven for a total of 14 hours and 12 minutes.
James Cullen, defending, said that Clorley had at the time been £72,000 in debt, and feared that if he was jailed he would lose the business and his home.
However, Judge Rhys Rowlands told the hearing the fact Clorley was driving along a dificult road, and over long distances, in an artic had created a “very real danger” to himself and other drivers. The judge said: “You were behind the wheel of a very large vehicle, driving long distances around Wales, when it would have been unsafe for you to have been driving.” Alex Fiddes, VOSA operations director, says: “Drivers’ hours regulations are there to ensure that people who use the roads are safe. Tired drivers are dangerous drivers, one in six motorway deaths result from drivers being too tired, so it is vital that HGV drivers stick to the rules and take proper rests.
“The sentence demonstrates how seriously the courts view such breaches.”