Amberline services stretched too far
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• Liverpool coach operator Amberline and 25 of its drivers were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling 210,200 last week when they admitted to 150 drivers' hours and tachograph offences before the city's magistrates.
The drivers admitted 75 offences: exceeding permitted driving limits; taking insufficient rest; failing to keep tachographs running continuously; and failing to make entries on the centre-field of tachograph charts. They were fined a total of 2400. The company admitted causing and permitting the offences, and was fined .27,500 with 22,300 costs.
Prosecuting for the North Western Traffic Area, Bryan Green said the offences had been committed on two particular services: a rapid service to London which was singlemanned, and a service between Merseyside and Nemes, France, which was doublemanned. The problem was that both services were so tightly scheduled that any delay meant it was impossible for drivers to comply with the hours' limits. One driver said to run the London service within the sche
duled time he would have to average 120km.
The trip to Nemes was 1,600km and had to be made within 22 hours, said Green — something rarely possible.
An investigation started after the receipt of an anonymous letter, on the company's headed notepaper, which claimed that drivers were being forced to drive excessive hours and they feared there would be an accident
The charges before the magistrates were a representative selection of the large numbers of offences discovered.