Quarrymen slam rates
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• A further 17 truck drivers who admitted falsifying tachograph records while carrying limestone products from Derbyshire quarries were ordered to pay £6.105 when
they appeared before Derbyshire magistrates.
In all, 28 drivers and ownerdrivers have been ordered to pay fines and costs of £10,340 following a Vehicle Inspectorate blitz at the RMC Roadstone Quarry at Dove Holes and at the Buxton Lime Industries Quarry at Tunstead Works, Waterswallows (CM June 23-29).
Some of the men who interfered with the circuits of their tachos said they committed the offences because of low rates paid by Tarmac and a five year
work-to-rule by weighbridge operators.
Driver Ashley Bates of Whaley Bridge, Cheshire, said: "We are in the wrong but it is not us who should be here. The rates are so poor that you can't do anything else."
Owner-driver Graham Bennett of Peak Forest said: "It was the pressure--otherwise we would have gone under."
"There are many reasons why the practice goes on," says owner-driver Michael Horrobin of Macclesfield. "Principally because of the long-winded loading process at Tunstead. It can take three-quarters of an hour. You get no brownie points for working legally and going bankrupt."