A string of issues has resulted in Plaza Cars’ O-Licence being suspended. TM Colin Banks must attend a two-day refresher course
In suspending the eight-vehicle O-Licence held by Plaza Cars (Birmingham) for 14 days at its third Public Inquiry (PI) in 18 months, Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton warned the company that a fourth PI was likely to be its last.
The company had appeared before the TC in June 2018 when drivers’ hours problems were one of the issues and in December 2018 when finance was the issue.
The TC said that Traffic Examiner (TE) Kathrine Cox had since found similar issues to those in June 2018. There had also been a complaint in October from a school that canisters of nitrous oxide had been found on a coach which primary school children could have had access to.
TE Cox said that when she visited the company there was no disciplinary procedure in place. One driver had had failures to record walk round checks pointed out to him for several months without any disciplinary action taking place.
The last digital download data that Transport Manager Colin Banks was able to find on the system was June 2018. He was not sure when the driver cards had been downloaded. He was unaware what the working time reference was. The driver’s handbook was very basic and only appeared to cover analogue tachographs.
Mr Banks appeared to leave the majority of the day to day running of the business to his daughter Director Joanna Taylor, and in her absence he did not fully know how the systems were set up to ensure compliance.
She agreed that she had seen digital downloads since 20 June and that there was now a disciplinary procedure in place. She said that the systems she had now seen appeared to be adequate.
In reply to the TC Mr Banks said that the 70-seater coach with the digital tachograph had had an accelerator problem and had hardly moved for six months. He did the inspections with their fitter, who was an Albanian and had had his own garage in Albania. He had not asked him for his qualifications as he knew he could do it. They had a Polish coach the fitter had worked on before.
