TC strips licence for blatant dishonesty
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The falsification of tachograph records has led to the revocation of the licence held by Cumbrian hauher Thomas Smith after North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell concluded that he had not been honest with her.
Bell said she considered that Salterbeck, Workingtonbased Smith, who held a licence for two vehicles and two trailers, will not have regained his repute for a period of four years.
PC Michael Woolaghan of Cumbria Police reported that after tachograph charts had been seized in a raid in September 1998 Smith appeared before Carlisle Crown Court in May of this year. He was fined £3,000 with £600 costs after pleading guilty to three counts of falsifying tachographs.
A number of the charts showed missing mileage, said Woolaghan. On others it appeared that the tachograph head had been opened and the clock wound back.
The TC was told that Smith had paid some of the fines imposed at the Crown Court but the rest were outstanding, pending the result of the present proceedings. Smith was also currently disqualified from driving for 12 months. If his 0-licence was allowed to continue he would work in France driving off-road and the business would be run by his CPC holder, David Penrice, and his daughter.
Smith claimed that in one instance the tachograph had been faulty, and on other occasions he had simply opened the tachograph head and removed the chart to see how much time he had left, mistakenly replacing it in the wrong place; hence the overlap in the traces.
Asked to explain fuel records which showed him drawing fuel at Lymm at 19:49hrs when the tachograph chart showed that he had stopped work at Leicester at 19:40hrs, Smith said that the fuel company's computer printout was wrong and that he had re-fuelled the following day.
Rejecting Smith's explanations, the TO decided that all the tachograph charts concerned had been falsified and Smith deliberately chose not to abide by the 0-licensing regime. The falsification of tachograph charts was not a matter that she could cc done. Smith had gained unfair advantage over leg mate operators.
"In this case Mr Smith ( not, in my view, choose to I honest with me and in my Vif he maintained a dogged de E mination to be dishorE throughout the proceeding: she added.
Bell also found it una ceptable for an operator abrogate his responsibility I working on the Continent ai leaving his business in tl hands of his transport ma ager. That seemed to her show a fundamental flaw the running of the busine. with respect to the obl g bons under the 0-liceni regulations.