1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136 
Defects and inspection
Page 79
Page 80
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
just what have you
promised to do?
A. W. Balne advises on the distinction which must be drawn
OPERATOR'S licences are, broadly speaking, granted on very little more than promises. Failure to keep them may result in suspension, curtailment or even revocation of the licence at any time after the grant.
The normal causes for such punishment are prosecutions to conviction, roadside checks and vehicle examinations at the licensee's address. If punishment is suffered there is a right of appeal from the Licensing Authority's decision to the Transport Tribunal. . . . But in general, so far as the first few years of experience under the new legislation have revealed any sort of pattern. the Tribunal has tended to uphold the decisions of the LAs on the need for punishment, although the severity of it has sometimes been varied.
The promises — described on the official application forms as "declarations of intent." relate to three matters drivers' hours, overloading and what is loosely called "maintenance".
Just one question is not so framed that only a YES answer will do. The exception is question 19 where yes or no may be used, because the following question enables the applicant to explain the negative answer. Ignoring these two questions which will be dealt with later. there are seven questions of which only two relate to Matters other than maintenance. They are concerned with drivers' hours and overloading.
For an operator to lose his licence or to suffer curtailment or suspension for either of these offences, he will have to have been prosecuted to conviction. So for these failures, the licensee can legally be punished twice for the same offence. Although this can also be true of any maintenance prosecution, it is more likely that punishment will come from roadside checks or vehicle examinations at the operator's premises which result in the issue of GV9s. whether immediate or delayed.
Yes questions
Let us first look at the five questions on maintenance to which there can only be a yes answer. The first of these, number 16, is so badly worded that as a "declaration of intent" its value is very much open to doubt. "Will the facilities and arrangements for inspecting and maintaining . . be such that they (the authorized vehicles and trailers) can be maintained in a fit and serviceable condition?" Facilities . . . arrangements . . . inspections . . . maintenance are four auite different things. At best it is a wholesale generalization whereas the remaining four questions 17, 18, 21 and 22 are quite specific as to what must be promised.
These are the four questions which, if the promises are not ketit, will cause the punishment possibilities. The question 17 asks "Will you arrange for reporting by vehicle drivers of any defects which come to their notice?" This is crystal clear. It has become fashionable to use drivers' logbooks which have a printed defect report attached to each sheet which is perforated so that upon completion, it can be detached and handed in to the person responsible for having the defects rectified. The copy of it remains in the logbook, which means that the logbook itself has to be kept for 15 months.
This seems to be a tidy way of securing the requirement but apart from the resulting storage problem, the method has many practical inconveniences.
It is question 22 that compels an operator to keep all paper records of inspections and repairs for at least 15 months. The dual-purpose logsheet demands either that NIL returns should be made out when
AZETRANSPORT SERVICING AND EQUIPMENT there are no defects to report or a lot of wasted paper. A separate defect report sheet is in my view preferable which, when the defect is rectified, can be filed in the vehicle's maintenance and repairs file.
LA wants names
Drivers being universally opposed to paper work are loath to complete defect reports, particularly when there is nothing to report. At least one LA has invited operators who have trouble in this respect, to send the names of the drivers to him.
The invitation should be entertained with the greatest possible hesitation since it can very obviously make for bad staff relationships. The subject is purely a management matter and no operator should lightly transfer his disciplinary control elsewhere.
However, it is necessary to understand clearly what is required. The reporting of a defect has to be in writing but there is nothing anywhere that says that it must be in the writing of the driver. His duty is to report. The person to whom he reports, whether he be in the fitter's shop or in the traffic office, can be given the task. In my opinion, it is better that way.
I have found, however, that it is vital to insist that the . report is signed by the driver and to make it a standing order that all defect reports must be signed by him unless he telephones his report, in which case the defect report should state that fact and what instructions were given to the driver at the time of the report.
Defect reporting does not necessarily have to be on a form at all. Some of the most efficient operators that I know use the well-tried, old-fashioned doubleentry system. The left-hand side of a foolscap, lined book is used to record the defect and the right-hand side, the rectification action. A single book then replaces countless bits of paper and is always available for immediate production to anybody. It also dispenses with the separate filing of the reports in vehicle files.
In effect, this is what the official guidance to owner-drivers recommends. The DoE does not expect them to prepare defect reports but they must make a note of them. For owner-operators and very small fleet owners, this sort of recording can quite easily occupy the lower part of the daily diary that forms the very bible of their businesses. Since such records are seldom ever destroyed, the 15 months requirement is no problem at all.
Question 18
We come next to question 18. This asks "Will preventive maintenance inspec tions for defects . . be carried out at regular intervals of time or mileage?" Not to answer yes to this would be fatal to any application because it is the very basis of the philosophy behind the legislation: regularity of inspections to discover defects before they become safety hazards.
Earlier I described the word maintenance as being rather loosely used. Question 18 shows one of the reasons. In it the words preventive maintenance appear for the first time. What does this mean compared with the commonly used word "servicing"? For as long as I can remember, the word maintenance or servicing has meant the adherence to the manufacturer's recommended routine maintenance schedules. This is not what is meant by the words preventive maintenance, which is the inspection of vehicles in addition to the manufacturer's recommended procedures and at more frequent intervals, so that perhaps on some occasions both may be done at the same time. For example, if the manufacturers recommend say, four services a year and preventive maintenance inspections are done monthly, on four occasions a service and an inspection will be done at the same time while inspections only, will be done on the remaining eight, with, of course, any defect rectifications found necessary.
I prefer to call preventive maintenance "safety inspections", which is what they are intended to be. They are in fact, precisely the same as those made by the vehicle testing stations for the annual test. In effect then, the operator is expected to do monthly, or at such frequencies as he considers appropriate, the same inspection and rectification as he does for the annual test.
The items inspected at the annual test are set out in the DoE Goods Vehicle Tester's Manual, a copy of which should be in the hands of every operator whether he does his own inspections or not. The Manual sets out against each item the method of inspection and by its side, the reasons for rejection. The latest edition
is available at HM Stationery Offices for 324-p.
Written record
As there has to be a written record of all maintenance, safety inspections, rectifications and repairs, so far as the safety inspections are concerned, the form used must follow the manual in every item. Anyone can make his own form simply by having the numerical Order of the items with their titles printed on to a foolscap sheet. Against each item must be room for the result of the inspection. The sheet would be headed with space for the vehicle number, date, mileage reading, etc.
Easier still, the forms are widely available from the trade associations, the oil companies and usually the manufacturers. These forms have the further advantage that they group items in the same area for convenient inspection with the manual test numbers against them. All forms must have space for the signatures of inspectors and any comments that should be recorded in the vehicle history.
Forms prepared specifically to match the Tester's Manual, are the only truly acceptable records. Commercial garages still continue to have their own preferences and foist them on those who use their services — not by any means all of them but far too many, although their numbers are decreasing.
All operators are strongly advised to insist upon the Manual-based form because since every Tester's Manual iternis a GV9 subject, any form which does not follow the Manual. deprives him of proof of examination at the last inspection if that evidence should be important either before the LA or in any other court.
The responsibility for the physical possession of the safety inspection records is always with the operator whether he does the work himself or entrusts it to a garage. If an outside garage is used, its system of documentation for safety inspection and all regular servicing procedures should be examined before sending the vehicles to it and it should be made quite clear that accounts submitted without fully completed inspection sheets will not be accepted.
Furthermore, it is desirable to obtain an undertaking in writing that not only will the agreed documents he supplied but if for any reason, it should be necessary to produce such documents to a court or a public inquiry to which the operator may be called, the garage will supply a witness to answer any questions related to it.
The filing of such documents is an easy matter and it is best to keep all of them throughout the life of the vehicle. It should also be remembered that even if the vehicle has been sold or scrapped, since records must be kept for 15 months, the records of a vehicle not in use should still be kept for that amount of time after its disposal.
The reason for this is that if an application is made within that period for additional vehicles to be added to the licence (particularly if there is only one on the licence) there will be no proof that the promise to keep records was kept and it may well cause the refusal of the additional vehicle sought. I have known several cases where this has occurred.
LA's doubt
In one such case, when the vehicle examiner went to inspect the vehicle specified on the licence, he found that it had just been replaced by a new one. There were no records of any kind of safety inspection or manufacturer's recommended services. All that .could be shown were a few bills for repairs. The LA not unnaturally, very much doubted the applicant's assertion that the records were immediately destroyed upon the sale of the specified vehicle. He delayed a decision for an additional vehicle until the new one had been in possession six months, when a further examination of the vehicle and its records would be made.
Now to return to question 19 which is the only question which can be answered either by a yes or no. Remembering that the preface to all the questions demanding declarations of intent, insists that the promise is binding throughout the currency of the licence granted, does a yes answer (which means that you or your employees will carry out the safety inspections) bind you to do so for say five years? I suggest not because it would lead to a position of utter absurdity if a licensee could not change to an outside garage to try to improve the condition of his vehicles and run the risk of being punished for having broken the promise.
The way to put the matter beyond any doubt (and this applies whether the answer to the question was yes or no) is to send a letter to the LA, if a change is to be made.
If the change is from one's own facilities to a garage, then the name of the garage, and its address should be given. If it is from a garage to one's own facilities, then the address where the facilities are to be used, should be given. The information will probably be merely noted. Should a large number of vehicles be involved in a ebange away from a commercial vehicle repairer, then it is possible that an inspection of them might be made.
Safety inspections
Finally, it is important for management to cost safety inspections separately from general maintenance. Safety inspections can easily drift into a chore where the preparation of the paper work is not accompanied by the same diligence in the inspections themselves.
If the cost of the safety inspections is low and the cost of the preparation for the annual test is high, it is a very strong indication that the inspections are not being done thoroughly. The paper work demanded in operator's licensing can, if used intelligently, be a very valuable management tool.