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Curtailment for hours abuses
Page 31
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TC curtails 0-licence and suspends HGV licence for hours offences, but decides revocation would be too harsh.
A YEAR-LONG abuse of the drivers' hours regs, including allegedly tampering with a tachograph clock, has led to an international operator's 0-licence being cut from two vehicles to one vehicle for eight weeks.The operator himself has had his HGV licence suspended for the same period.
Andrew Cairns of Arisaig. Invernesshire. trading as Silverline Transport Services, appeared before Scottish Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitken at a Fort William disciplinary inquiry.
Traffic examiner Jonathan Harvey said the licence was granted in March 2003. He had made a new operator advisory visit in May 2003 during which he identified a number of drivers' hours shortcomings, and in particular highlighted an instance of 12 consecutive insufficient daily driving periods.
Harvey made a further visit in March 2004. He analysed 125 tachograph charts and found 36 infringements. 26 of which related to Cairns' own driving — mostly relating to the taking of insufficient rest. There was one instance of 15 consecutive daily driving periods without taking the required weekly rest.
The tachograph clock appeared to have been wound on before or after departure from Britain. He had inspected a further 113 tachograph charts for February to May 2004 and found 15 infringements.
On one occasion Cairns had driven for five hours 58 minutes without taking the required break and there were other instances of either insufficient or no weekly rest. Cairns denied winding the tachograph clock forward. In his defence he said he had been under pressure to meet delivery schedules for one of his customers. He no longer worked for them and his present customers did not present the same problem. He had hired a transport consultant,William Smith, and would continue to do so for tachograph analysis.
The TC said that though she found Cairns was seriously in breach of the undertaking given in relation to drivers' hours and tachograph records, she considered that revocation would be unduly harsh and that there was a chance that he could operate properly in the future. The period of the curtailment reflected her serious view of the road safety implications of the offences and she had to respect those operators who were compliant. •