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Nuttall: drivers' hours fine
Page 26
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• Rochdalebased James Nuttall (Transport) paid fines and costs totalling £2,717 after the town's magistrates convicted it of 18 offences of permitting drivers to exceed the hours limits and take insufficient rest.
The company was cleared of an alleged 35 similar offences. In December, 17 of the company's drivers were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £6,170 after admitting 65 hours and records offences. (CM 1-7 December).
Prosecuting for the North Western Traffic Area, Christopher Worthy said it was the duty of the employer to ensure as far as reasonable that drivers did not exceed the permitted hours limits. He maintained that Nuttall's system for checking tachograph charts was not as good as it could have been, and more importantly, its system of disciplining drivers was totally inadequate. There was a general picture of drivers committing offences, going back to 1984. A number of the drivers involved in the present case had offended before, and a particular eye should have been kept on them.
Traffic examiner Gary Shepherd said the offences came to light when he looked at the company's charts for a nine-week period in February and March 1988. In 1984, nine of the company's drivers had been prosecuted for similar offences, a driver had been convicted of four offences later in 1984, another had been convicted of falsifying charts in 1986, and another of hours offences in May 1987.
Shepherd said he had looked at the charts for June 1987, discovering 37 offences by 17 drivers. He was not aware of any action stronger than a written warning being taken against any of the drivers.
Questioned by John Backhouse, defending, Shepherd agreed that only 2.5% of the charts checked had revealed any offences and the majority of the company's drivers complied with the regulations. Backhouse said action had been taken against erring drivers.
The magistrates found the company guilty of permitting offences by those drivers who had offended previously.