Vehicle maintenance problems have resulted in the 19-vehicle international licence held by Ross-on-Wye based George Young’s Coaches being suspended for seven days by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton.
The firm had been called before the TC who was also considering the repute of Transport Manager (TM) Gwendoline Young – one of the Directors – at a Birmingham Public Inquiry.
The TC said that Vehicle Examiner (VE) Wayne Bird had reported that drivers had been failing to detect defects and some defects had been reported on successive days.
Some vehicles had also exceeded the eight-week inspection period, it being said that they were off the road during the school holidays. There was a poor annual test pass rate of 20%.
On 15 November a fuel pipe fault allowed gas to escape into the vehicle and a number of pupils became ill. In May part of a door fell off. The driver picked it up and placed it behind his seat and then carried on driving pupils. Director Kevin Young had stated that the driver had moved the pupils to the back of the bus in order to get them to school expeditiously and the driver had received a verbal warning.
Mr Young said that he had taken a lot of advice from the VE and had implemented a lot of it. Fully documented gate checks were now carried out. The driver disciplinary system had probably not been as good as it should have been. Asked what the drivers’ profile was, he replied: “It could be described as Dad’s Army.” The maintenance contractor had now been asked to give them a full explanation of any annual test failures.
The school and not the driver had reported the November incident. The driver had claimed that he was unaware of what had occurred, saying that the pupils had not said anything. When he subsequently visited the school, one of the Governors had said he thought the pupils had overreacted. He thought that deep potholes along the route had contributed to the pipe fracturing.
His mother Gwendoline Young was 82 years old but was fit and well. He thought she would be prepared to go on a refresher course. Ideally going forward, he would take over the TM’s role but would need to obtain his CPC first.
The TC commented that other work had not been recorded on tachograph charts. That was symptomatic of a TM who was not up to date. He had found more things wrong with the paperwork than she had in five years.
He required undertakings that a new TM would be in place by 5 November and that vehicles would be roller brake tested every 12 weeks.
Suspending the licence with effect from 29 October, the TC said that there had been five prohibitions in the last two years, one of which was ‘S’ marked. The driver defect reporting system had been dysfunctional.
There had been some improvement of late but much more needed to be done.
