Prima Cheese fleet cut by more than half
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Fleet curtailed and licence suspended for failing to prevent drivers from creating false driving records
By Roger Brown
PRIMA CHEESE, based in Seaham, County Durham has had its leet curtailed by more than half for failing to prevent some drivers from creating false driving records and committing trafic offences.
Following an August public inquiry (PI) in Leeds, Kevin Rooney, trafic commissioner (TC) for the North East, ordered that the company’s licence immediately be reduced from 15 vehicles and seven trailers to six vehicles and four trailers for an indeinite period. Rooney also suspended the company’s licence for 14 days from 28 September.
The hearing was told how a Vosa trafic examiner visited the company following an incident when one of its vehicles was stopped at the roadside in July 2011. At the time, the driver was issued with a prohibition for a false record. When the examiner inspected paperwork at the company’s premises, he found that digital records for two of the vehicles had not been downloaded by Prima, despite the legal requirement to do so every 56 days.
Further analysis of digital and analogue tachograph records revealed missing mileage for drivers throughout 2011, while two individuals who had been double manning were found to have continually breached regulations.
Meanwhile, the examiner also identiied that although vehicles were being tracked by Prima, bosses failed to realise that drivers were not recording the start of their journeys.
During an interview with MD Behroz Beni, the trafic examiner asked why drivers’ records had not been checked. Beni replied that the person responsible had not done his job properly.
But he accepted that the offences committed by drivers – which included exceeding 4.5 hours’ driving without qualifying breaks and exceeding daily driving times – should have come to the attention of the company if they had been downloading the relevant data.
Two drivers claimed during interviews that it was dificult to carry out some of the journeys without breaking regulations governing the hours they could work. However, both admitted that they had chosen to commit the offences.
Beni told the examiner that all routes were checked to ensure they could be completed legally.
However, the PI was also told that four of the company’s drivers had been prosecuted for drivers’ hours offences, resulting in ines.
TC Rooney recorded several undertakings on the company’s licence.
Beni and the company’s transport manager agreed to attend refresher courses before the end of the year and assured the TC that drivers would receive 14 hours of Driver CPC training in the same period.
Additionally, the business has to ensure that drivers’ records are independently analysed and monthly reports reviewed, and that an external body will make a full audit of procedures every six months.
Undertakings
The traffic commissioner imposed undertakings on the business designed to help it bring its procedures up to scratch.