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At last, the conundrum over loss of repute arising from potentially minor road traffic offences is over, with the Transport Tribunal ruling that Traffic Commissioners must consider the seriousness of road transport offences before finding repute has been lost.
It's a shame it has taken so long for the authorities to admit their mistake—Thomas McHugh was the first to lose his licence to the new wording in the regulations back in January—but at least the right decision has been reached in the end. Presumably, hauliers like McHugh will now find their licences returned without delay.
The question many will now be asking is why the wording was changed in the first place: just what was the point in taking the power of discretion away from TCs, only to return it a few months later? But perhaps hauliers would be better advised not to dwell too deeply on this and simply be grateful that an unjust situation didn't last. Just sometimes, it seems, good sense prevails...
• Many people can raise a couple of hundred quid at short notice without too much anguish. So what message will cowboys get from the measly LzIo fine imposed on AB Skip Hire last week by Solihull magistrates for a list of offences including having no 0-licence, no vehicle excise duty no tachograph checks and allocating a vehide to a driver without a proper driving licence?
As the company can easily afford to pay the penalty from its ill-gotten savings, the only message we can see is that even if crime doesn't exactly pay, it will at least cover its own costs.