Hymas six fined 580
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• Drivers' hours and tachograph offences cost six drivers employed by Harrogate haulier Albert Hymas a total of £580 in fines and costs, when they appeared before the town's magistrates.
Senior traffic examiner Bryan Walscher said that all six were employed to drive 38tonners. The Department of Transport took a serious view of repeated openings of tachograph heads, and in a number of cases tachographs had been opened by drivers for considerably longer than necessary to check the number of hours they had left to drive.
Driver John Craven had opened his tachograph on three occasions on 23 October for periods of between three and five minutes. and on three occasions the following day for periods of between five and 10 minutes. There was no indication of what work was being done while the tachograph was open. Driver John Elders had removed the chart from his tachograph for 50 minutes and drawn a line by hand between the traces purporting to show a period of rest. On another occasion he had removed the chart for five minutes, during which time there was unrecorded movement. He had been on duty for 15hrs 45mins.
Driver Kevin Nicholls had been on duty for 22hrs 55mins on 7 November, and for 21hrs 15mins on 14 November. Driver Bruce Padel had driven for 5hrs 45mins without taking the required amount of break. Driver William Rider had driven 11 firs 40 mins when towing a broken down vehicle, covering more than 800km.
Driver Raymond Sharpe had been on duty for 17hrs 25mins using two charts for the day with the consequence that an examination of a single chart would not have indicated his full day's work, said Walscher. In addition, be had driven for 6hrs 20mins without taking the required break.
Defending, Gary Hodgson said some drivers were not as quick as others at working out how many hours they had left when opening the tachograph to examine the chart: there were no allegations of any falsification.
The problem with the daily rest was that they were not dealing with separate days, but rolling periods of 24 hours, he added. It might well be that the drivers had had more than 11 hours rest, but unfortunately it had not coincided with the rolling 24 hours. It was not a question of spending long hours driving and working without rest; the drivers had taken breaks but not of a sufficient
length of time.
Craven was fined 250 with 225 costs for two offences of failing to keep a proper record; Elders was fined 2150 with £15 costs for two similar offences and one offence of taking insufficient daily rest; Nicholls was fined £30 with £25 costs for two daily rest offences; Padel was fined 225 with 225 costs for 41/2 hours offence; Rider was fined 225 with 225 costs for exceeding the daily driving limit; and Sharpe was lined £80 with £25 costs for one daily rest offence and one daily driving offence.