Traffic commissioner (TC) for Scotland Joan Aitken has disqualified a haulier from operating trucks for two years after discovering he had used a magnet to create false drivers’ hours records.
Insch, Aberdeenshire-based Ronald Dawson Wink was also banned from HGV driving for 12 months, following a public inquiry (PI) last month.
An examiner became suspicious that records had been falsified when a truck driven by Wink was stopped in Craigforth in June last year.
When driver card and vehicle unit data was cross-checked with routes provided by the company Wink subcontracted for, ARR Craib, and compared with ANPR camera footage, the examiner established that the vehicle unit and card showed rest when the truck was actually being driven.
Wink admitted to the examiner that he had been using a magnet to conceal driving time, although he claimed it was only used at weekends to get the vehicle washed.
However, the TC found that he had used the magnet on a trip from Ireland to get onto a ferry and avoid parking at the port. He claimed that this was to allow him to get the vehicle in for a repair. “I do not believe he was under pressure to use a magnet or other manipulation,” the TC told the PI. “He has done it to save his own time and or his own convenience. He has breached provisions that are there for road safety and fair competition. That may be why he has work; he undercut honest hauliers who could have done that work but for price and honest time.”
Aitken gave him credit for co-operating with the DVSA and for his operation’s compliance with roadworthiness standards.
