A Hereford recovery operator who continued driving HGVs almost a year after his Driver CPC had expired, has had his licence revoked. Robert Davies, who traded as RGD Recovery, was also disqualified indefinitely after TC Nick Denton found he had “wholly neglected the responsibilities and duties of both operator and transport manager” following a Birmingham public inquiry.
A vehicle driven by Davies was stopped by the DVSA in August last year and the traffic examiner found his Driver CPC qualification had expired 11 months previously. Davies stated under caution that he had not realised it had run out. The DVSA then conducted an investigation into the firm and found that its vehicles had a 100% MOT failure rate; there were very few preventative maintenance inspection records; no driver defect reports could be produced for one of the company’s vehicles and Davies himself “lacked knowledge of the responsibilities and duties of a modern-day transport manager.”
The operator was called to a PI, but he responded saying he would not be attending. The hearing went ahead anyway and the TC said Davies, as transport manager, had completely failed to exercise the required continuous and effective management and that the loss of his good repute was inevitable.
“It is clear to me that Davies had no systems in place to ensure that his vehicles were in a roadworthy condition and being driven by drivers who were entitled to drive,” said Denton. “He has wholly neglected the responsibilities and duties of both operator and transport manager. I was unimpressed with the claim that it is impossible to do everything required without substantial support from administrative staff. It was not through lack of staff that he drove for 11 months without a CPC or that he failed to fill in driver defect reports. It was not a lack of staff which prevented him from putting in his two vehicles for regular safety inspections. “Failure on such a scale is attributable to Robert Godfrey Davies alone,” he said.
The TC revoked the licence and disqualified as an operator and transport manager: “Because his failures as a transport manager were such that they will not be cured by the mere passage of time, I am making the disqualification indefinite,” Denton added.
