Hours offences cost £5,200
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DRIVERS employed on international runs, by Bannon and Ward transport Ltd of Dewsbury, had driven dangerously long hours with company approval, local magistrates were told before they fined the company and four drivers a total of £5,100 with £100 costs.
The defendents pleaded guilty to 152 offences, which included the making of false entries in record books. exceeding 450 kilometres without being accompanied by another driver, failing to keep control books on four occasions, and excessive hours.
Michael Paterson, prosecuting for the Yorkshire Licensing Authority, said the drivers, with the knowledge of the , company, had driven grossly excessive distances and dangerously long hours, with insufficient rest, and, in an attempt to disguise what had been going on, had made out drivers' records that bore no relation to the work carried out or the countries visited.
Mr Paterson said the company — the transport subsidiary of shipping and forwarding agents, Bannon and Ward Ltd — was engaged mainly in the carriage of goods to and from Germany, Switzerland and Spain.
These journeys were subject to EEC Regulations, drivers having to have at least one hour's rest after four hours' continuous driving, with an overall limit of eight hours' driving in any one period of duty.
The four drivers concerned, Kenneth Thornton, of Dewsbury Charles Aden Mallinson, of Halifax, William Frederick Easton, of Doncaster, and David Riley, of Telford, had paid no regard whatsoever to those regulations, Mr Paterson alleged.
The prosecution maintained that the company had condoned and permitted what had been going on and had caused the drivers to keep manifestly false records.
The offences were revealed when traffic examiners checked drivers' records against international permits issued to the company; the permits had been stamped by Customs posts, as the vehicle passed through, and this provided an indelible record of the journeys undertaken.
When interviewed, a director of the company had said he had never thought that the records would be checked against the international permits, the prosecution alleged.
Jack Lumb, for the defendants, said transport companies now not only had to understand complicated domestic regulations; they also had to absorb and digest international decrees.
It was one thing to say firms should digest such decrees and another to say that drivers must do the same.
Drivers did not have a natural inclination to fill in records and it was natural for them to want to get home early.
Bannon and Ward were fined £3,900 and ordered to pay £100 costs. Each of the drivers was fined £300.