Ineffective communication and organisation led to hours and tachograph offences being committed
Drivers’ hours and tachograph offences committed by drivers employed by ABC Coach on trips to the Glastonbury Festival have led to the company’s licence being cut from 20 vehicles to 18 for 14 days by Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Simon Evans.
The DTC also took action against the drivers involved. Darren Lewis’ vocational driving licence was revoked and he was disqualified from holding such a licence for six months. Michael Todd’s vocational driving licence was suspended for three weeks.
The company, of Pendlebury, Manchester, and the drivers had appeared before the DTC at a Golborne Public Inquiry.
The DTC said it was clear that ABC’s handling of particular practical problems at the festival that year was not adequate, appropriate or effective. Driver Lewis had been found in possession of two digi-cards and admitted preparedness to use a second card, if held up in traffic.
On another date, he had removed his digi-card on a journey but had continued to drive for 35 minutes. Driver Todd had driven for 12 hours and eight minutes with a daily rest of only two hours and 26 minutes.
He had been caught up in very heavy traffic delays taking passengers to Glastonbury. It was clear by the time he arrived at his destination that it was by then impossible for a legal return journey to be achieved.
Nevertheless, he and two other ABC drivers had made such a return trip. No clear instruction by management had been given to drivers and effective communication channels had not been maintained, despite early contact from drivers that they were severely delayed.
Obvious opportunities were missed to book overnight accommodation for the drivers and give explicit direction to them. Instead, ABC had opened itself up to the allegation that because the same vehicles were to be used the next day for further journeys to the festival that business need and convenience had been placed before road safety and compliance with the law, by leaving it to drivers to make their own final and entirely wrong decisions.
This was a serious case of failure to act in a competent and proactive manner, when faced with a problematic situation. Systems in any compliant operation should be able to recognise the unusual and smoothly and assuredly put into place processes to manage the unexpected legally and compliantly.
The fact that after what ABC described as 20 years of straightforward unproblematic delivery of passengers to the festival, there was a failure to address something out of the ordinary but which was not that unusual or extraordinary was disappointing in the extreme.
It was wholly possible for ABC to have managed the position so that it avoided three of its vehicles returning back to base when manifestly they ought not to have done, placing the public at risk from tired drivers after what would have been a fraught day.
However, he was satisfied that there had been a timely and proactive response by ABC to these adverse events.
