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Drivers failed to record time ' spent driving to coiled truck
Page 34
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A SCOTTISH operator has had its licence authority reduced for six weeks for a series of drivers' hours and tachograph offences, including falsifying tachograph records and the failure of drivers to record the time spent travelling from base to their vehicles.
Shotts-based Colin Muir had been called before Scottish Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitken at an Edinburgh disciplinary inquiry She curtailed the licence from two vehicles to one for six weeks and required that Muir's transport manager and wife, Annette Muir, attend a refresher course. The TC said she would require evidence that this ruling had been complied with.
Traffic examiner Joseph Logan said the firm's work consisted of transporting refrigerated goods, particularly fresh fish. to the Continent, as a subcontractor for Norfolk Line. An analysis of tachograph charts, gate receipts, fuel receipts and ferry crossing details had revealed a number of offences, including some by Colin Muir. He and his three drivers had said they were unaware of the European Court's decision in the Skills Motor Coaches case which clarified a drivers' obligation to record time spent travelling to and from vehicles away from base as periods of work.
Muir said his understanding was that only driving and loading counted as duty. The work was allocated by Norfolk Line.The vehicles were loaded on the East Coast then went to Boulogne. The drivers travelled to Eyemouth by car and the driver who loaded the vehicle brought the car back. However, this job was now handled as a double-manned journey.
In addition. the company now employed a driver based in Evemouth who did the single-manned journeys. The problems had arisen when they were stretched by a heavy workload.
The TC was surprised that Muir, his transport manager and the drivers had remained ignorant of the Skills judgment which had been issued five years ago.