Two-week cutback over maintenance
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• Maintenance problems have led to seven vehicles and seven trailers being suspended for two weeks from the licences held by two associated Lancashire haulage companies.
Blackpool Cargo Express, with a licence for 20 vehicles and 25 trailers, and Blackpool Cargo Storage & Haulage, with a licence for five vehicles and five trailers, appeared at a Trafford disciplinary inquiry before North Western Deputy Traffic Commissioner, Patrick Mulvenna.
DOT vehicle examiner Michael Dobson said that in August he examined eight vehicles and 10 trailers, issuing three immediate and two delayed prohibitions.
extended to nine months. Extended inspection frequencies and a lack of effective driver defect reporting had led to the issue of a large number of prohibition notices.
In reply to James Backhouse, defending, Dobson said that he felt that things had started to go wrong in 1995 when the fleet was expanded. Mulvenna pointed out that there had also been a conviction for insecure roadwneels.
Managing director Alan Green accepted there had been shortcomings in the maintenance The inspection records were not consistent with system. Advice had been taken the condition of the vehicles and from the Vehicle Inspectorate and lacked basic detail—they did not their recommendations had been reflect a six-week inspection freput into effect.
quency. In fact, said Dobson, They had moved premises to inspection intervals were around Fleetwood in June 1995 and a con12 weeks, and sometimes they siderable amount of work had to be done to the
The driver premises, said appeared to have Green. His traffic been briefed to suddenly and name somebody that had caused additional else as as his sure. He had
trusted the fit
employer ters too much and he had not supervised the maintenance sufficiently. There had been occasions when inspection records had not been completed; he had now taken personal control of maintenance. Ordering a further maintenance investigation in six months' time, Mulvenna curtailed the Cargo Express licence to 14 vehicles and 19 trailers, and the Cargo Storage licence to four vehicles and four trailers, both for two weeks. He was confident that the measures that were being implemented should overcome the difficulties.