A wholesaler who sent vehicles for MOT to find out what defects they had is facing a year’s disqualification from operating.
Traffic Commissioner Nick Denton said the firm’s director failed to take any interest in vehicle and driver compliance throughout the time his company held the licence.
In fact, he wasn’t even aware of the very high annual test history failure rate for his vehicles.
Unsafe vehicles
The business ran an unsafe vehicle for several years which was driven by an employee who regularly failed to take the required weekly rest.
DVSA found lots of issues during its investigation, including out of date inspection sheets, a lack of brake testing, two prohibition clearance failures (for brake defects), incomplete driver defect reporting and the use of a vehicle with an obviously faulty tachograph.
No improvement
The company failed to show it had made any improvements at a public inquiry before Mr Denton.
He said the director hadn’t made the slightest effort to understand what was involved in running a HGV.
He revoked the operator’s licence and disqualified the company and its director for 12 months.
