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Dixon orders a fleet reduction
Page 17
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Maintenance problems have led to the licence held by Manse! Davies & Son being cut from 191 vehicles and 161 trailers to 160 vehicles and 130 trailers. The Llanfyrnach, Pembrokeshirebased company had been called before Welsh Traffic Commissioner David Dixon at a Barry disciplinary inquiry.
Vehicle examiner Roger Thomas said the company's vehicles had attracted 23 prohibitions over the past 32 months. One had been imposed on a trailer shipped from Ireland which had corroded balance beams and a cracked mounting beam; four of the others related to malfunctioning speed limiters. On some occasions vehicles were two to three days over the four-weekly inspection period. There were cases of mileages not being recorded and roller brake tests were neglected.
Defending, Stephen Kirkbright maintained that only six of the prohibitions were due to maintenance failures. He said that two were due to fitter errors, one related to an insecure anchor pin, one was a stupid error relating to brake efficiency and the other two related to speed limiters.
Managing director Stephen Manse! Davies said the company was currently operating 156 vehicles. Maintenance was carried out at three sites in West Wales and the workshop staff had been increased to 28. He was disappointed by the level of prohibitions and he was always looking for improvement: "Everyone makes errors from time to time," he said.
Manse! Davies gave an undertaking that all vehicles would be roller brake tested every eight weeks. Kirkbright pointed out that the company had been in business for 4.0 years and this was its first maintenance-related public inquiry.
Cutting the licence, and indicating that he was unlikely to allow any increase in authorisation this year, Dixon said 23 prohibitions in just over 22,3 years was far more than the company should be attracting. There had been nine since last June, he added, indicating that the problem was not yet resolved.