Licence gone for a week
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Drivers' hours and maintenance problems have led to the twovehicle licence held by Bootle, Merseyside, haulier Mervin Williams being suspended for seven days.
Williams, who trades as Williams Transport, appeared before North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell at a Wigan disciplinary inquiry.
Vehicle examiner Peter Turner listed three prohibition notices imposed on Williams' vehicles. He said that maintenance had been contracted out to a commercial garage.
Traffic examiner Peter Ilsley said an examination of tacho graph charts revealed breaches of the drivers' hours rules. Williams himself had exceeded the daily driving limit, and had taken insufficient rest on a double-manned journey.
Williams has been booked in on a drivers' hours and tachograph course and was to go on a vehicle inspector's course, said transport manager Mark Also. who is based in Yardley, Birmingham.
Because of the difficulties that had been experienced, Also added, it had been decided to reduce the business to one vehicle, which would be driven by Williams. "We have to acknowledge we have made mistakes, which we deeply regret," he told the inquiry Questioned by the TO, Also said he worked two to three hours a week for Williams. He met him once a fortnight in either Hereford or Liverpool. He was also the transport manager for one firm in Kent and two in the West Midlands.
Bell said she had been told In the past that to operate in Liverpool an operator had to run illegally. Williams responded by saying, "I know what is going on, but I don't have to do that."