Director “completely out of his depth” disqualified

Chris Tindall
March 4, 2020

A company director has been disqualified for three years and his firm’s licence revoked after the traffic commissioner said its O-licence had been operated in a “highly non-compliant manner”.

Following a Birmingham public inquiry, TC Nicholas Denton said three MOT presentations for Roadways Haulage all resulted in outright failures.

There were gaps of up to 15 weeks between safety inspection intervals, there was no proper forward planner and the operator’s trailer had no brake tests carried out.

Tacho charts were not properly analysed and a traffic examiner found that director and sole driver Pargan Singh was in the habit of removing the tachograph chart from the vehicle and continuing to drive – evidence showed he had done this on 11 occasions between February and April 2019.

The TC also said Singh had lied about why there had been no charts used during driving – he’d claimed the driving was done by the maintenance provider.

In a written version of an oral decision given by the TC following the PI, Denton said Singh was “completely out of his depth”.

He said: “He does not appear to have responded to the suggestions of his transport manager, although the transport manager should have been much more rigorous and effective in following these suggestions up.

“Revocation of this licence is in any case mandatory given the lack of financial standing and professional competence but even if it were not, I would still be revoking it under Section 26 alone because the operator’s complete failure to address any of the issues identified by DVSA’s reports means that I can have no confidence that it will comply in future.”

Singh was also disqualified from driving HGVs for 12 months.

The TC went on to say that transport manager Gurkamlpreet Singh failed to exercise the required continuous and effective management of the licence.

He had failed to spot that vehicles had missed inspection dates and he failed to ensure the tacho charts were sent off for analysis in a timely manner.

The TC said: “I have come very close to removing Gurkamlpreet Singh’s repute. I have just refrained from doing so because his record on the other two licences on which he is the transport manager has not suggested any significant failings.”

About the Author

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Chris Tindall

Chris Tindall started writing for the haulage and logistics industry in 2002 and has covered a broad range of significant issues, including GPS jamming by criminals, platooning and Brexit.

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