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General laxity in running firm

25th September 1997
Page 27
Page 27, 25th September 1997 — General laxity in running firm
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Keywords : Tachograph, Law / Crime

• Drivers' hours and tachograph offences have cost a Liverpool company and one of its drivers .C1,350.

Stephen Preator pleaded guilty before Liverpool stipendiary magistrate Stephen Ward to falsifying a tacho record, failing to make entries on the centre field of tacho chart, withdrawing a chart from the tachograph before the end of the day, taking insufficient daily rest, exceeding the daily driving limit, and failing to return tachograph charts within 21 days.

He was fined £350 and ordered to pay £100 prosecution costs.

Solitaire (Liverpool) admitted causing and permitting Preator's offences and failing to produce tachograph records. The company was fined LS(X) with £100 costs.

Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said Preator's vehicle was stopped in a check at Uwloe, Flintshire, in December. It was clear Preator had created a false chart the previous day to conceal drivers' hours offences on a journey from Gaslewind in Germany Preator had driven back through the night from West Germany without taking the required daily rest, said Heaton, He maintained that the company must have known about the hours offences because Preator had handed his charts in just before the check.

Preator said he had been offered a job with the company driving to Romania—he had previously been a seaman. He had asked many drivers about the hours rules but he still did not understand them.

Martin Neenan, the company's technical manager, said it was a textile company operating two vehicles. The smaller vehicle, which was not subject to the regulations, was the one that now went to Romania.

The magistrate said there was a general laxity in the running of the company and he was unhappy to hear it had got a smaller vehicle to avoid the regulations. It was a situation where a blind eye had been turned in the hope the company would get away with it. It had become a kind of conspiracy between the company and the driver for the commercial advantage of the company.


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