Driver branded ‘danger to other road users’
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TC bans LGV driver for three years, saying he showed a disregard and contempt for road safety
By Roger Brown
A GLASGOW-BASED driver has been banned from driving trucks until June 2015, for behaviour that traffic commissioner (TC) for Scotland Joan Aitken said had shown a “disregard and contempt for road safety” .
At an August driver conduct hearing in Glasgow, the TC was told that Hugh Cowan Richardson had: • been convicted and imprisoned for four months in May after falsifying tachograph charts; • been convicted and subjected to a sixmonth tagging order in March 2010 for making a false record, failing to produce charts, failing to use a chart and exceeding 4.5 hours’ driving without a break; • been abusive, intimidating, aggressive and unco-operative to roadside enforcement staff, on one occasion making a physical threat to an enforcement officer; • failed to stop his vehicle when initially directed by an enforcement officer; • been suspected of using a device to interfere with tachograph recording equipment, to conceal the true record of his driving duties; • attempted to prevent an enforcement officer from immobilising a vehicle.
Cumbria Constabulary said Richardson had been stopped by Vosa officers on the A6 at Wragmire Moss, near to Carlisle, in September 2011. A Vosa officer was suspicious of some charts and contacted Police. From information available to officers, it was suspected that the charts were false and Richardson was arrested.
Following a joint investigation by Vosa and Cumbria Police, Richardson was charged with eight counts of making a false instrument, namely a tachograph chart – charges to which he pleaded guilty.
TC Aitken was told how on one occasion Richardson physically prevented examiners from immobilising his vehicle by pulling the end of the cable from their grasp.
She took evidence from Richardson at the hearing, having earlier suspended his licence following the prison sentence. Richardson said he was now a reformed character, but the TC was not convinced.
Ordering that Richardson be disqualified from driving LGVs until June 2015, Aitken concluded: “He is a danger to other road users in his disregard of rest and breaks, and I was appalled by the description of his attempted evasion of Vosa and the police when running to the border.
“This is a very serious case – suspension cannot meet the gravity of the case and the history of the disregard for drivers’ hours and tachograph provisions. This is a revocation case.” When TC Aitken’s order expires, Richardson will have to apply for his LGV entitlements to be restored.