Company permitted rest offences
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• Weekly rest offences have cost Salford-based Pinecote and five
of its drivers, a total of £1,680 in fines and costs.
The company, trading as Fins, pleaded guilty before Salford Magistrates to six offences of permitting the drivers to take insufficient weekly rest. It was fined £900 with £30 costs. The company also admitted one offence of the unauthorised use of a vehicle and was given a conditional discharge for 12 months.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, senior traffic examiner Tony Anderson said that when one of the company's vehicles was stopped in a chuck in Cumbria no 0-licence disc was being displayed and the driver had failed to take the required weekly rest period. This led to a check of the company's tachograph records, revealing the other offences which would have been obvious to the company if proper checks had been made.
Transport manager Gordon Hadfield said this was the first time in 11 years' trading that the company had had any problems with drivers' hours. They now realised that they should have carried out more rigorous checks of the tacho records.
The drivers were fined £100 per offence with 00 costs.