Albu keeps watch over Brake
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Lancashire owner-driver Graham Brake, trading as GB
Haulage, has been "put on probation", by North Western LA Martin Albu.
Brake, of Hoscar, Lathom, near Onnskirk, Lancs, holds a licence for one vehicle and trailer. He appeared at a Manchester disciplinary inquiry and the LA had required Brake's transport manager, a Mr Shone, to attend too but he had declined to do so. Consequently, said John Backhouse for Brake, he had been replaced by a Mr Thompson. DOT vehicle examiner Eric Bober said that since the licence was granted in September 1992, one delayed and two immediate prohibitions had been imposed on Brake's vehicle. Brake was sent a warning letter following the issue of an immediate prohibition during a maintenance investigation in February 1993.
In June Brake's vehicle was seen being driven in an erratic manner on a country lane, belching out black smoke. Bober tried to arrange to inspect the vehicle, but on 29 June Brake wrote saying that it was under repair at the main dealers. However, Bober saw the vehicle in use on 1 July and carried out a partial inspection, issuing an immediate prohibition for smoke, brake, steering and other faults.
Some of the inspection records were signed by Brake and others by a contracted fitter, but the fitter's signatures did not match that on the contract.
Brake said that the original fitter was incompetent. The second fitter had to give up due to personal reasons and he had now arranged for the maintenance to be done by a third freelance fitter, Alan Metcalfe. Thompson had been working as a drive but was between jobs. and had taken a maintenance course. The arrangement was that Brake would take the week's tacho records and
inspection sheets to Thompson's home on Sundays.
When the vehicle examiner saw his vehicle at the beginning of July it was parked outside his house, said Brake. It was booked in to go into Leyland Daf and in fact went in one-and-a-half hours later. He agreed that he was convicted of unauthorised use in July 1992 and of two drivers' hours offences in January Cutting the duration of Brake's licence to expire at the end of August 1995, instead of at the end of August 1997, Albu said Brake had initial problems but now appeared to have taken steps to rectify the situation.