Witney-based A W Cleaver Haulage has had its O-licence revoked after one of its family directors had committed tachograph and driving offences.
A Bristol public inquiry (PI) heard that dashcam evidence showed Daniel Cleaver had driven the wrong way around a roundabout. He was also found to have been “in the habit of driving vehicles to and from maintenance providers without a card in the tachograph head”.
In March this year an A W Cleaver vehicle driven by Daniel Haskins was involved in a fatal collision caused by an instantaneous tyre failure. No fault has been found with either the company or the driver for that accident.
Traffic commissioner (TC) Kevin Rooney was told that a DVSA maintenance investigation followed two prohibitions issued at annual test. However, Rooney accepted explanations offered for both those failures and accepted that they are unlikely to happen again.
He added: “There is nothing in the maintenance arrangements that would cause me to take regulatory action.” But Rooney said in his written decision that his concern was “the potential for Cleaver to cause further offending, either by himself or by others”.
The TC said: “On the day he drove around the roundabout the wrong way, with no tachograph card inserted, he had started driving at 5.56am and was driving again almost 18 hours later. He accepted that he may have been suffering from fatigue.
"He also told me that his mind wasn’t on his driving as he had had an argument with his ex. He should never have got behind the wheel of that vehicle. That was a serious, reckless, error of judgement.”
Cleaver has already resigned as a director, although he still works in the business. Rooney said that as a family member he will continue to have influence over others and that meant that he could not trust the operator to be compliant in future.
The TC added: “For that reason, revocation of the licence is necessary so that I can take the necessary steps to exclude Daniel Cleaver’s influence. However, with his disqualification and exclusion from the business, a fresh application can succeed and my intention is for that to happen with no break in operations.”
