Operator disqualified for allowing drivers' hours breaches

A business that enabled its drivers to deliberately falsify tachograph records, operated without a transport manager, and allowed a driver to operate a truck without a Driver CPC, has been disqualified from running trucks for an indefinite period.

Macclesfield-based sole trader Yvonne Naylor was stripped of her O-licence following a public inquiry (PI) on 16 February, which she did not attend. Stephen McEneaney, who acted as a transport manager in name only, received an indefinite disqualification.

A DVSA investigation into the business highlighted many substantial failures including lack of records analysis, prohibitions for maintenance issues, and deliberate record falsification by drivers. 

 Drivers had been pulling tachograph fuses when they were about to run out of hours, had not been completing checks, and did not hold a Driver CPC.

Drivers Thomas Naylor, Alan Taylor, and Paul Johnson were convicted of tachograph falsification offences at Grimsby Magistrates’ Court. 

Thomas Naylor was stopped at Immingham docks in October 2013 without a Driver Qualification Card, and claimed the load he was carrying was for his personal use, something which the DVSA proved was incorrect. The business was operating as a subcontractor for another firm. The DVSA alleged that the business was operating out of an unauthorised site, as no one at the nominated operating centre knew Yvonne Naylor.

Naylor claimed in a letter to the Office of the Traffic Commissioner that it was the responsibility of transport manager McEneaney to analyse drivers’ records as part of his role, and said his lack of doing so allowed the drivers’ convictions to go unnoticed. This was contradicted by McEneaney, who claimed Naylor’s husband had told him to lie to the DVSA about looking at charts when he had not.

In another letter before the PI, Naylor said she felt she was being “personally singled out and victimised” by the authorities, which West Midlands traffic commissioner (TC) Nick Jones did not accept.

The TC said in his written decision last month: “I place weight on the fact that the operator had not dismissed drivers who falsified records, instead they have been given reprimands (or at least that is what is claimed). I would expect a compliant operator to summarily dismiss any driver who falsified records.

“It is apparent that while drivers falsified records, the operator was at the heart of the falsifications and the culture of this organisation was one of commercial advantage being placed above compliance with the law.”

He found that McEneaney had “acquiesced to the demands of Yvonne Naylor”, which had placed the safety of other road users at risk. 

“Any transport manager who allows his name to be put forward as transport manager knowing that he is not performing the role deserves to be kept out of the operator licensing system,” said the TC.

The only factor the TC said he could find in favour of the operator was its proposal to surrender its O-licence.