Hearing clears 18 Osborne drivers
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• No action was taken against 18 drivers accused of drivers hours offences employed by Rotherham international haulier JG Osborne at a disciplinary hearing before North East Deputy Traffic Commissioner John Hampton. He is to give his decision in writing later, The DLA called 10 of the 18 drivers before him, originally considering taking action against their LGV driving licences (CM 31 Dec-6 Jan, 25 Feb3 Mar).
Hampton said the drivers had explained why they exceeded the drivers hours limits on various occasions but the infringements
were not serious. "Their employer pointed out they had done wrong and encouraged them to stick to the rules."
Company director Ron Osborne said many of the police's allegations against the drivers were totally unfounded and denied he had allowed the business to grow beyond his capability to control it.
For the company, Stephen Smith said it was significant that there was no suggestion that drivers had been speeding or falsifying tachograph records.
Two of the drivers, David Ashton and Gerry Hutchinson, claimed that apparent infringements shown on their tachograph records were due to a faulty tachograph.
Others said they had exceeded the hours limits to get to safe parking places.
Driver Malcolm Edwards said he had driven over when the French farmers were beating up British drivers and burning their trucks while on strike.
They maintained that on many occasions the reason for exceeding the limits had been written on the back of the tachograph charts.
PC John Parramore said that if there had been any relevant explanations on the rear of the charts, both the front and rear would have been photocopied.
Driver Brian Else said he believed the police had got it wrong on many occasions.
Taking no action against the drivers, Hampton said he felt it would be wrong to take disciplinary action against the drivers on : the material before him.
Smith wanted to know how Ronald Osborne could be held to be responsible when the drivers were deemed not to be responsible for the alleged infringements.