Site trucks need weekly safety check, LA told
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• The need to maintain heavy-duty ipping vehicles on hard contract work to iery high standards was stressed by Mr A. 3. Birnie. the Scottish LA, when he penalized D and J Finlayson (Contractors) 1Ad, of Rat ho, Midlothian, in Edinburgh last veek.
Mr Michael Wilson, secretary of the company, said there had been no overall transport policy at the time of the offences; each section had looked after its own :ransport. He admitted two offences for pverloading and also receipt of GV9 prohibitions in full. In August 1970 a new system of recording vehicle inspections had peen adopted but that had not proved affective. The directors had now instructed aim to take responsibility personally for pperation of transport policy and they had :ontracted with the FTA to do a .hree-monthly fleet check, as well as ntroclucing more stringent servicing and .ecording in their own set-up.
Mr Wilson said that when the prohibition lad been received they had investigated the iosition and found that operational needs were being given priority; not enough time was being allowed to service vehicles properly and it was clear that more time was needed to look after the vehicles.
Mr W. M. McCoubrey, senior mechanical engineer to the DoE in Edinburgh, was asked to comment on the proposed FTA arrangements. These, he indicated, could be excellent for normal operation but a vehicle operating on demolition work ought to be examined more frequently than once a month. Only the operator could decide the frequency required but in his experience more frequent checks were needed than on most of the published forms, A tipper operator would be unwise if he inspected his vehicles only monthly and he advised a check on the safety aspects at least every week.
In his decision the LA, said that the management was definitely at fault and not living up to its responsibilities, and the penalty that he was to impose would therefore be one that would bite. He ordered that two of the eight vehicles should be suspended for 10 weeks and a statement of future intentions would also be required.