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Defect records were kept in Polish
Page 18
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The licence held by Northampton-based JT Raca International has been revoked by Eastern Traffic Commissioner Geoffrey Simms. The IC also disqualified MD and transport manager Jozef Raca from holding or obtaining an 0-licence for three years, and disqualified directors Aurelia Raca and Krysztok Raca for one year.
Simms said that Jozef Raca had abused the liberal goods vehicle licensing law of Creat Britain to operate vehicles from and within Poland, contrary to the 1995 Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators I Act and the 1975 UK/Poland Road Transport Agreement. which banned cabotage in Poland. Raca knew that as a non-resident he could not obtain a licence in Poland and he had hired Polish residents who were not qualified to drive in Great Britain but had made regular domestic journeys within Poland.
He had demonstrated a reluctance to comply with the reasonable requests of the Vehicle Inspectorate and the Eastern Traffic Area to provide vehicles and records for inspection. Inspection records that were ultimately produced were found to be false.
Vehicle examiner Christopher Barnett told the TC that he had made several attempts to inspect the company's vehicles. Eventually he had inspected a vehicle and trailer at the beginning of October imposing an immediate prohibition on the trailer. The driver defect reports were in Polish. The company's three vehicles had all failed their annual tests at the first attempt— one vehicle needed four attempts.
Although the vehicles had been maintained by main dealers in Poland for the past 10 months Raca did not regard them as being based in Poland. They had been maintained in Poland because of difficulties in getting them inspected in the UK caused by the firm's delivery schedule. He said he had written to the Traffic Area saying that the vehicles were permanently operated in Poland and Lithuania and that they were maintained at their base in Poland, but the letter had been badly phrased, Their base was in Northampton where he had been in business since 1957.
At the conclusion of the November hearing the TC had requested the production of tachograph records for August and September ( CM, 22-28 Nov 2001). Incomplete records had been received for two vehicles; a covering letter signed by Raca said the records for a third vehicle were not available as it was in constant use in Poland.
Deciding that Raca no longer met the requirement to be of good repute, the TC said undertakings on drivers hours and tachographs had been broken. The situation was not helped by Raca's limited knowledge of the rules.