Keen fined £450 for hours offences
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• Permitting drivers hours offences has cost a Telford operator E452.50.
Walter Keen, trading as WA Keen Transport, admitted one offence of permitting a driver to fail to take a weekly rest period, one of failing to use a tachograph correctly and one of permitting a driver to exceed the permitted working day, when he appeared before Telford magistrates. No evidence was offered in respect of four other allegations. He was fined 2100 on each offence and was ordered to pay £152.50 prosecution costs.
Patrick McKnight, prosecuting for West Midland Licensing Authority Ronald Jackson, said the offences came to light when an articulated outfit driven by Anthony Ward was stopped in a check in North Yorkshire at 4.45pm on May 24, 1985.
Ward produced a tachograph chart showing he had come on duty in Edinburgh at 10am. He said the lorry had been double manned, with a Peter Thomas driving to Edinburgh where he left it. He produced a chart showing that Thomas had left Telford just after midnight, arriving in Edinburgh at 10am.
As Thomas was no longer with the vehicle, said McKnight, Ward could not take advantage of the 22-hour spreadover for double-manned work. He also had not put his chart in the tachograph.
Other tachograph charts showed that Ward had driven the vehicle every day from May 15. He had taken a rest period of 27 hours on May 19/20 and not the 33 hours that he should have taken.
When interviewed, Keen said he had not realised that both drivers had to be present on a vehicle throughout a 22hour period to be able to claim that it was double-manned.
For Keen, Adrian Roberts said the drivers had been instructed to take the appropriate rest periods. Keen had not realised that drivers had to take 24 hours' and a daily rest period together each week. He thought the 24 hours rest was sufficient.