The use of a mobile phone by a driver employed by Caernarfon-based Arvonia Coaches while driving in Belgium on a tour to Croatia led to the firm being called before Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Jones at a Welshpool Public Inquiry (PI).
The TC revoked the vocational PSV driving licence held by the driver involved, Sean Davies, and disqualified him from holding such a licence for 12 months.
He took no action against the company, which held a 10-vehicle international licence, other than to issue it with a formal warning. He accepted the resignation of Director Rhiannon Stokes as Transport Manager (TM) and her replacement by her son Sion Stokes, as well as an application to reduce the licence authorisation to five vehicles.
The company is regarded as a good operator, said the TC. It had only been called to the PI because of the incident. He also said that the distraction caused by using a mobile phone meant that potentially the driver was more likely to have an accident. He expected operators to have a written policy in place in regard to the use of mobile phones.
The TC said that Ms Stokes had obtained her CPC through acquired rights and had not done any refresher training. Consequently, she might not have kept up to date in regard to the law in respect of the use of mobile phones when driving. Mr Stokes had acquired his CPC 10 years ago and had recently undertaken refresher training.
Laura Hadzik, for the operator, said that although Ms Stokes had not had any formal refresher training, she had kept herself up to date. Though there was no written policy in place at the time there was a verbal policy and the Driver CPC training that the drivers, including Mr Davies, had undertaken covered the use of mobile phones. The firm now had a written policy and there had been a complete overhaul of the company’s management and systems.
After the TC said that there was a video of the incident taken by a passenger who had complained, Ms Hadzik said she was concerned that the video might have been edited as the company had received information from another passenger on the tour that the complainant ‘had it in’ for the driver.
Mr Davies said that he had asked the complainant, who was standing at the front of the coach as it was being driven to sit down three times, shouting at him on the last occasion as he was concerned about his safety. The complainant turned to the rest of the passengers and said: “I’m not being spoken to like a dog” and “he has it coming to him”.
After watching the video, the TC said that it was raining at the time which made it more dangerous.
Mr Davies said that he did not deny that he had been using his mobile phone to use Google Maps and that what he had done was silly. It had been a solitary incident.
Although saying it was not proportionate to take action against the operator, the TC said that the significant lesson was that it should have had a written policy. All TMs had a responsibility to keep themselves up to date and to take refresher training at least every five years.
Making the revocation and disqualification orders against Mr Davies, the TC said that the use of a mobile phone on at least three separate occasions on a 10-day tour abroad was wholly unacceptable.
