Welsh haulier ‘danger to other road users’
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By Roger Brown
WELSH HAULIER Richard Sims, who ran a truck with no dashboard warning systems, has been disqualiied for two years after Nick Jones, Trafic Commissioner (TC) for Wales, described his vehicles as “a danger to other road users”.
In a written decision following a March public inquiry, Jones revoked the Pontypool operator’s O-licence from 15 April and said he had also lost his repute as a transport manager, demonstrating an “abject failure to comply with basic rules”.
“This operator has run unsafe vehicles that are a danger to other road users and the public,” he said. “He misled VOSA and has failed to comply with the undertakings on his licence.” VOSA began a maintenance investigation into the business – authorised for ive vehicles and one trailer – after one of its trucks picked up an S-marked prohibition in October 2009.
A vehicle examiner stopped the vehicle as it was being loaded with a forklift and a man said he was the forklift driver and he did not know where the lorry driver was. Documents in the cab revealed that the man was in fact the truck driver.
The vehicle had an inoperative dashboard display so that there were no warning systems. There were loose wheel nuts, a deep cut in one tyre, and a brake valve was leaking. The vehicle’s road tax had also expired three months earlier.
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