The director of a timber haulier has been disqualified for 10 years after he allowed a Fastrac tractor on the roads with no MoT, road tax or tachograph, which was then involved in a road accident.
Claire Gilmore, the TC for Scotland, said it was a miracle no one was killed after Raddery Sawmill’s tractor trailer, fully loaded with 18 tonnes of timber, became detached and travelled across the carriageway before colliding with another vehicle. The oncoming vehicle was impaled on the trailer’s drawbar, which passed through the engine compartment into the passenger cabin. The driver was injured and taken to hospital.
The DVSA investigated the Fortrose operator following the incident in October 2022 and it found that there were no systems in place for ensuring that the rules on drivers’ hours and tachographs were being observed.
Giving evidence at the PI, Alasdair Anderson explained that when he got his O-licence in 2010, he put systems in place, but these had fallen away over the years. He said nobody bothered to look at the tacho information or other documentation, so he had stopped keeping them.
Disqualifying the operator and removing his professional driving entitlement for three years, TC Gilmore said: “The operator, under the stewardship of Mr Anderson, has failed in a wholesale manner to comply with the licence undertakings.”
