Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton has disqualified Sandwell Travel’s sole Director and Transport Manager (TM), Sukhwinder Singh, from holding or obtaining a PSV O-Licence for seven years following the revocation of the company’s five-vehicle licence. He is also disqualified from acting as a TM indefinitely.
The company, of Somerset Road, West Bromwich, failed to appear at a Birmingham Public Inquiry.
Vehicle Examiner (VE) Wayne Bird said that he carried out a maintenance investigation following an unreported wheel loss in November 2016.
Safety inspection sheets were out of date, and there were large gaps within the four weekly inspection frequencies ranging between 13 and 45 weeks.
Sukhwinder Singh had initially said that the missing inspection records had been stolen during a robbery. The story subsequently changed, it being said that the inspection records had been damaged during the robbery and the information had been transferred to brand new records.
The records that were said to have been damaged were never produced, so he had no idea whether the copies were genuine or had been completely made up. A lot of the gaps in the records were after the date of the robbery.
The first-time failure rate at an annual test was three times the national average and the final failure rate was over four times the national average. The company had been without any qualified fitting staff since October 2016.
Sukhwinder Singh had difficulty in answering the most basic questions. He thought the MoT history was very good when it was very poor. He was unaware of the form for reporting the wheel loss incident when asked why he had not sent one in. He had said that they used an air wrench to tighten wheel nuts, which was not appropriate.
The VE felt that Sukhwinder Singh did not have a lot of involvement with the business – his son, Satwinder Singh, answered most of the questions.
Both the company’s local services were monitored over 14 days. Of the 21 journeys monitored on the 336 service, 18 failed to operate. Of the 148 journeys observed on the 333X service, 17 were more than a minute early and seven were more than five minutes late. Satwinder Singh explained that they had had to take buses off the 336 route to supplement the 333X route for commercial reasons.
The TC said that unqualified staff had been employed, vehicle inspections missed, and an inappropriate wheel nut tightening procedure practised.
He made it plain that checks would be made to see if operation continued and if it did, impounding should be looked at.
The MoT failure rate was appalling, and it was of great concern that Sukhwinder Singh actually thought that it was good. It was only by good luck that serious injury or worse was not caused by the wheel loss incident.
Sukhwinder Singh’s failure to appear at the inquiry, or even to offer an explanation for his non-appearance, showed that he did not take the regulatory regime, or compliance, seriously.
