Licence revoked despite haulier’s severe illness
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Yau Keung Tsang has his licence revoked after he let maintenance standards slip at his business
By Roger Brown
AN OPERATOR who let maintenance standards at his company slip after he and his wife contracted serious illnesses has had his O-licence revoked.
In a written decision following a July public inquiry, Anthony Seculer, deputy trafic commissioner (DTC) for the Western Trafic Area, said although he was sympathetic towards Oxford-based Yau Keung Tsang, the haulier had “failed to put in place systems and management controls” to cover his prolonged absences over the last four years. Tsang, who traded as Lung Wah Chong, with authority to run three vehicles, had been seriously ill during 2007 and 2008 and received extended treatment outside the LTK. His wife had also been ill with cancer in February 2010, and received treatment in Hong Kong.
In January this year, vehicle examiner Michael Lailey and trafic examiner Dave Pomphrey from VOSA visited Tsang’s premises and discovered that: • vehicles had not all been maintained within the 5/6week speciied periods; • the rules on drivers’ hours and records had not been observed; • an effective system of driver defect reporting had not been in place; • a training programme hadn’t been implemented for all drivers; • rolling road brake tests hadn’t been carried out; • tachographs and drivers’ records hadn’t been subject to external analysis.
Tsang told VOSA he had appointed transport consultants TVT in July 2009 to run his transport operation. Although Wayne Vint of TVT contacted VOSA staff in January 2010 to say he was going to be employed as Tsang’s transport manager, it was later discovered he was never actually employed in that capacity.
Lailey also told the DTC there had been an absence of day-to-day control and a “complete lack of improvement” at the business between January and May 2011, and that Tsang had adopted an “ad hoc approach to his duties” . He added that driver defect reports appeared to be stacking up in Tsang’s ofice without anyone monitoring them.
Tsang said he couldn’t attend the July PI as he was in hospital in Hong Kong. However, the DTC said that the absence of any internal management controls in the context of Tsang’s frequent extended absences was “a real threat to compliance and road safety” .
He added: “I found that Tsang failed to put in place management controls to cover his prolonged absences over the last four years. The absence of an effective drivers’ defect reporting system on the drivers’ hours prohibition is a risk to road safety, which must be paramount over Tsang’s business interests and any sympathy over his personal health.”