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Tribunal confirmed revocation after operator blamed Poles
Page 33
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Tribunal said road safety had been imperilled by hours offences.
A NORFOLK OPERATOR which blamed more than 60 hours offences on its Polish drivers has failed to win back its licence.
Upholding the revocation the Transport Tribunal was critical of the company's owner for detaching himself from paperwork responsibilities allocated to his son and said the evidence against him was"overwhelining".
The revocation of the licence for 15 vehicles and20 trailers held by John Fuller, trading as Fuller's Haulage Sz. Storage, of Kings Lynn, was made by Senior Traffic Commissioner Philip Brown, sitting as a deputy in the Eastern TrafficArea.
The TC had been told that when tachograph records for eight vehicles were analysed Fuller's son Mark admitted there would be some serious offences. He claimed these had been mainly committed by Polish drivers.
Missing kilometres
A total of 50.537km were missing, some 17% of the total covered by the eight vehicles.The most serious contraventions were 26 offences of driving for more than 41/2 hours without taking the correct breaks; 10 offences of exceeding the daily driving limit; 23 offences of taking insufficient daily rest; and four offences of taking insufficient weekly rest.
Traffic examiner Richard Mutimer had told the TC most of the offences involved many hours' driving over the maximum permitted. The contraventions were so obvious they should have been spotted at a glance and the alarm bells should have rung".
He added that the Polish drivers "didn't have a clue" about drivers' hours and record keeping. They had been allowed to continue driving in breach of the rules for far too long. It should have been stamped out within days, if not weeks, rather than months. Jobs had been allocated to drivers when they had already exceeded their available hours.
John Fuller said he had delegated the paperwork and drivers' hours and tachograph matters to his son (CM 11 May).
Appearing before the Tribunal, John Fuller accepted there had been serious problems with some of the drivers, but said they had been sacked and improvements had been made.
Mark Fuller said he issued written warnings to the drivers as soon as he was aware of the hours contraventions. He could not do more and was unable to police drivers when they were not in the yard. They now worked four days on and four days off, which was the solution.There had been no proper paperwork trail for maintenance,but that had been rectified.
Upholding the TC's decision, the Tribunal said: -It seems from the evidence that [John Fuller] was well aware of the problems with his drivers and that he regarded this as being the responsibility of his son,rather than himself.We are satisfied the contraventions of the drivers' hours rules were serious and systemic and that road safety was imperilled.., this was a clear case for revocation."