Company pays the price Mr leniency to its driver
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• Permitting a driver to take insufficient breaks and rest cost Warwickshire haulier Allelys £1,350 in fines and costs when the company appeared before the Stratford upon Avon Magistrates.
The Studley-based company had denied six offences of permitting Paul Haywood to exceed 4.5 hours of driving without taking 45 minutes break and three offences of permitting him to take insufficient weekly rest.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, Beverley Bell said that Haywood had been sent warning letters by the company in June 1993 and July and August 1996 about breaches of the drivers hours rules. The prosecution was saying that the action taken by the company was insufficient and as a result it was guilty of permitting Haywood's offences, said Bell. She pointed
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out that the High Court had made it plain that it was not sufficient to keep issuing written warnings, and that operators had to take some disciplinary action.
Managing director Maurice Allely said that Haywood had been with the company for about 20 years. If he had gone on to commit further offences he would have been dismissed, claimed Allely. He said that he had to give drivers verbal warnings and two or three written warnings before dismissal, otherwise the company would be in trouble with the employment law. He did not feel that there was anything more that he could do to ensure that the company's drivers complied with the rules.
In reply to Bell, Allely said that he had had the same problem with Haywood all the way through, with his not taking enough time off.
The company was fined £750 and ordered to pay £600 costs.