No pursuit on wheels
Page 17
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• South Wales
Oki LA John Mervyn
Pugh has re newed Cardiff Transport's licence and says he will not pursue a wheel-loss incident in Hampshire, which resulted in a fatal accident, because he is satisfied about the outcome of the subsequent court case.
The company's licence expired in December 1989 and its renewal bid for 33 vehicles and 180 trailers (an increase of 80 trailers) had been delayed pending the outcome of the court case.
Mervyn Pugh said that at the time he had felt that this was a arge company which had a pretty bad record, and one of its vehicles had been involved in a tragic accident.
For Cardiff Transport, Colin Ward said the majority of its work was the carriage of steel from British Steel. He said overloading convictions had arisen because British Steel sometimes got the weights wrong.
An earlier problem some time ago involving tachograph charts said to have been "thrown away" had resulted from them having been burnt "by not the brightest of lads", said Ward.
He added that Cardiff Transport had been a different company since Carlton James Hobbs became managing director in March 1990. There had been no further convictions and massive changes were taking place in the way the company was run. It was endeavouring to win BS5750 and was about halfway to achieving that aim.
Hobbs said great steps had been taken in the past six months and they were aiming to work to BSI standards rather than Cardiff Transport's. But he accepted they had not implemented the system of maintenance recommended in South Wales, which included a driver daily nil-defect reporting system.
Mervyn Pugh said that larger companies than Cardiff Transport had implemented it, so why not Cardiff Transport?
Commenting that inspections based on mileage intervals were not acceptable, Mervyn Pugh said Cardiff Transport had a bad track record, and he had to be satisfied it had a suitable system before he could allow it to continue or authorise an increase in its fleet. It was vital that operations were planned around maintenance, not the other way round.
Hobbs agreed that it was a simple system and said that the company would take it on board.
Renewing the licence only until the end of December 1993, but with the increased trailer authorisation, Mervyn Pugh directed that there must be another public inquiry at that time.