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IN CASE TWO
Page 25
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Fleet drivers to be 'brought up to scratch'
A MIXTURE OF convictions nd maintenance problems has d to a scaffolding business aving its 0-licence cut from 10 ehicles to eight.
North-Eastern Traffic Commisioner Tom Macartney took the ction against Jarrow-based arine Scaffolding after vehicle xaminer Scott Kirkley reported the findings of an unannounced Maintenance investigation that Was conducted in March.
It followed the issue of a umber of prohibitions. A change f maintenance contractor hadn't een notified; the stated inspecion interval of eight weeks had teen exceeded; the driver defect eporting system was not being used properly; and there were shortcomings in the completion Of the safety inspection records. The initial failure rate at annual test was about twice the national average, and the firm had also been convicted of overloading and using a vehicle without a test certificate.
Kirkley agreed with Paul Carless, for the company, that a lot of the prohibition and defect notice items should have been detected by the drivers and that they were "lous, lorry drivers'?
Director Anthony Mullen said the drivers weren't mechanics and that they had not been sure what they were looking for.
They had been taken through the defect reporting procedure, and by January would sit a module of Driver CPC training, which included defect reporting. He said he had not known the change of maintenance contractor had to be notified. Steps were also being taken to solve the problems of overloading 7.5-tonne vehicles.
He did agree that they were "amateur vehicles driven by amateur drivers" and that Mullen said he understood the need to bring the drivers up to scratch.
Mark Hciddinott, the company's current maintenance contractor, said he took about 20 vehicles a week for annual test and rarely had a failure.
Agreeing that he undertook vehicle maintenance for a number of scaffolding firms, he said: "Scaffolders are animals, to be honest."
Undertakings concerning the firm's transport were given to the TC.