Disadvantage of operating under own name
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Alan Wood-Townend
• The disadvantages of a haulier operating in his own name, rather than forming a limited company, were illustrated when Glossop magistrates endorsed the driving licence of Alan Wood-Townend with three penalty points, after convicting him of using a vehicle with defective brakes. The driver of the vehicle, which failed to negotiate a bend when coming down the Snake Pass in April, was given an absolute discharge with no endorsement.
Evidence was given by the driver that he had had no previous trouble with the brakes. When he came over the top, and started coming down, the brakes did not seem to be slowing the vehicle as they should. He reached the point where he felt he had little or no brakes at all. He concentrated on trying to keep the vehicle on the road without hitting anything. He had thought he was going to die. The vehicle was unable to take the bend, it went through the crash barrier and turned on to its side. He was thrown through the windscreen and down the hill.
A vehicle examiner gave evidence that he had examined the vehicle about 51/2 hours later. The amount of travel on the push-rods indicated that the brakes had been maladjusted. They were substantially out of adjustment, seriously impairing the braking efficiency. The brakes were warm to the touch and showed signs of having seriously overheated.
The following morning the brakes were cold, and a second vehicle examiner said the amount of travel on the offside front brake was one quarter inch less than the night before and that on the two rear brakes approximately one quarter inch less.
Wood-Townend said that he operated two vehicles, driving one himself. He had acquired the vehicle concerned from Dewsbury Haulage some four weeks before the accident. It had been serviced before he bought it. He had driven it himself for the first two weeks and experienced no problems. The vehicle was checked over each day and more thoroughly each weekend.
John Backhouse, defending, argued that the overheating of the brakes would have affected the amount of travel on the push-rods. He asked the magistrates to say that neither operator nor driver was to blame.
In giving the driver an absolute discharge, the magistrates said they accepted that the driver was blameless in that he would not have started down if he had known the brakes were faulty.
They did not feel, however, that they could take the same position as regards the owner of the vehicle and fined Wood-Townend £100 with £80 costs.