Yeardley repute is kept for SE depot
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• Brian Yeardley Continental has succeeded in obtaining a licence in the South Eastern & Metropolitan traffic area. The company had applied for a licence authorising the operation of 10 trucks and 15 trailers from Headcorn in Kent.
At an Eastbourne public inquiry Licensing Authority Brigadier Michael Turner said his main concern was the repute of the company following convictions recorded against a number of its drivers for drivers hours offences in 1990 and 1993, together with a number of convictions for overloading. He said he was not bound by the
decision of EastThe breaches had ern Deputy LA occurred as a Brian Horner last month to take no result of errors by action other than the drivers pany about the convictions and breaches of the drivers hours regulations committed by drivers on the Continent (CM 26 Jan-1 Feb), The present inquiry was not disciplinary and it was up to the company to satisfy him it met the requirement to be of good repute.
For Yeardley, Gary Hodgson said that many of the latter alleged breaches had occurred in Italy, where there was a problem in finding safe parking. That apart, the breaches had occurred as a result of errors and miscalculations by the drivers and not because of the way the work was scheduled. Many of the drivers who had been convicted of drivers' hours offences in 1990 and
1993 were no longer employed by the company, so it could not be said that the same drivers were being allowed to continually commit offences, Only two drivers had been convicted in both 1990 and 1993. The 1990 convictions would be "spent" in April and the company itself had never been convicted of any drivers' hours offences.
Turner pointed out that he was entitled to take account of convictions recorded against the company's staff.
Hodgson said that tachograph charts were checked on a twomonthly cycle by the Freight Transport Association. The company had experimented with Lucas Kienzle and Logiq "black boxes" but had found them unsatisfactory. A further firm of tachograph analysts had been employed to help.
Drivers applying for jobs with the company had to fill in a questionnaire which was used to assess their ability as far as tachograph use was concerned, Part of the problem with the fortnightly driving limit was that journeys were now taking longer because the company had to fit speed limiters.
Consequently, it had decided to cut down the time in England and that was why it was seeking an operating centre in Kent.
The overloading problem had clearly been cured; there had been no convictions since 1993.
Turner granted the licence for the full five years.