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Warned about maintenance
Page 35
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A Wigan firm has escaped with a warning over its maintenance standards, but one of its drivers has had his licence suspended for two months for pulling a speed limiter, fuse. H&G Haulage (Farnworth) and driver Stephen Kennedy had been called before North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell. The firm currently operates 23 vehicles and 40 trailers.
Appearing for the company, Jonathan Backhouse said that it had been set up in 1981 by five former lorry drivers and it had a core of 10 good customers. It had had two warnings about maintenance in the past and had adapted its systems in line with those, but without complete success. Recommendations made by a vehicle examiner last year had been followed and he suggested that the company now had a good maintenance system in place.
They may have been a little bit too slow in getting it right but they have got it there now,' said Backhouse.
Director Roland Blackshaw said that Kennedy had been dismissed. He had previously had several warnings for bad timekeeping, on one occasion failing to turn up for work at 05:00hrs because he was locked in a cell at Wigan poke station for fighting with nightclub bouncers. Blackshaw said he had told Kennedy that as a professional driver he should have been in bed and not out on the town.
The company gave undertakings that personnel responsible for tack analysis would go on a course and that a written driver disciplinary system would be introduced within six months. Bell said she was satisfied that this would address her concerns, coupled with a warning that the company must not let its maintenance regime become slack in future.
Bell said: "It is clear that the company had become complacent and that it had not been fully complying with its obligations under the operator licensing system. In that it was no different to many other operators in the North-West and in other Traffic Areas."
Suspending Kennedy's licence, the IC said that she gave him credit for making full and frank admissions of what he had done.