A haulier who was convicted for being more than 20% overloaded, as well as illegally copying an O-licence disc, has been disqualified from obtaining an O-licence for six months.
Sole trader Wayne Clark also had his licence revoked by East of England traffic commissioner Richard Turfitt (pictured) on 6 October. His transport manager, Michael William Clark, was disqualified from acting as a transport manager for an indeterminate period.
The decisions followed a public inquiry in Cambridge in September, when Wayne Clark was called to the hearing as a result of DVSA investigations.
Clark had previously been convicted of an overloading offence of 21.87% gross, intent to deceive with the copied O-licence, and of using a vehicle without a valid O-licence.
The TC found that in addition to these convictions, Clark had fallen short of the expected standards in other ways, including: having ineffective management control and appropriate systems and procedures; ineffective driver and maintenance staff training; and having made insufficient changes to ensure future compliance. One of the results was a low first-time pass rate at MoT tests and multiple failures at that test.
Turfitt said when he announced his judgement that it had partly been informed by the Upper Tribunal Case involving Arnold Transport, when the tribunal said: “Cutting corners all too easily leads to compromising safe operation. It is important operators understand that if their actions cast doubt on whether they can be trusted to comply with the regulatory regime, they are likely to be called to a public inquiry at which their fitness to hold an operator’s licence will be called into question.”
However, Turfitt gave Clark credit for being frank at the hearing, after Clark admitted he did not know what he was looking at when asked to review his own PMI sheets. Turfitt also noted Clark had co-operated with the DVSA investigation and had a relatively low prohibition rate.
