The TC stated that compliance issues were on the serious end of the scale when making his decision to suspend the licence
Failures to properly monitor drivers’ hours and tachograph compliance led to the 15-vehicle international licence held by Birmingham-based Endeavour Coaches being suspended for 14 days.
The company, of Aston, Birmingham, had been called before Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton.
Traffic Examiner (TE) Tracy Love said that the company ran a mixture of analogue and digital tachographs. Whilst the digital data had been analysed the analogue data had not. The drivers were required to download their own cards and had been trusted to do that, which led to one driver not properly downloading his card. Other drivers had missed the 28-day legal requirement. One driver had been trained to download vehicle units and had been left to do it.
Some vehicle units were missed and not downloaded within the legal timeframe. The infringement reports produced following digital analysis were not brought to the drivers’ attention. The analysis that was carried out had not identified that drivers were not recording their time on duty away from the vehicles. Two drivers had been removing their digital tachograph cards in order to hide more serious offences.
Director and Transport Manager (TM) Sean Mitchell was keen to achieve compliance and happy to take the advice and guidance offered. Sean Mitchell said that he became TM in April 2016 at a time when he and his father were seeking to buy the company from his two uncles.
Any suggestion he made had to be agreed by his uncles, as he was not a Director at the time. Neither wanted to negotiate or work with them. Once the company was theirs he started to put the systems in place he wanted to achieve compliance.
Since the TE’s visit the company analysing the digital tachographs now also monitored the analogue tachographs. He accepted that prior to the TE’s visit he had not been on top of things as he should have been. Consequently they had since carried out comprehensive driver training, and they now ran missing mileage reports and made it clear to the drivers that it would not be tolerated.
Recommendations made by a transport consultant were being implemented and the intention was to continue to employ him. He had found that the CPC examination had not prepared him for the practicalities of operation. He agreed that he was also acting as Managing Director
After an examination of records produced at the hearing, it was said that those relating to driver infringements and steps taken to raise them with drivers were incomplete. There was no sign of any mode switch improvement in the analogue records.
Making the suspension order, the TC said that he accepted some improvements had been made, but they had not gone as far as he would have expected. Mr Mitchell was young, inexperienced and overstretched and needed more support. The level of compliance was towards the serious end of the scale and the response had been inadequate.
