Quarry owner made life hard for tipper operato
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• by Mike Jewell
Welsh Traffic Commissioner David Dixon is to contact the North Wales quarry owner Tilcon about its attitude to drivers' hours limits.
Dixon made this clear when Flintshire tipper operator Lenard Williams appeared at
disciplinary proceedings, after he and his son Neil had been caught falsifying tachograph records.
Williams had been fined 2720 by Wrexham Magistrates for 45 offences of falsification; his son was fined 2540 for 34 similar offences.
Neil Williams told the IC that the quarry owner had been approached about the situation but did not want to know. Its staff did not like tippermen parking in the quarry to rest.
The TC commented that other operators had told him that the quarry owner had made life difficult for them.
Traffic examiner Geoffrey Whitley said Williams operated two vehicles moving quarry materials from North Wales to sites in the North-West, mainly for Tilcon (South). When asked
to produce 12 months' worth of tachograph charts, Williams was able to produce them for only six months.
Analysis of the charts for June and July 1998 revealed a large number of falsifications. In Lenard Williams' case the amount of falsification was in excess of 90%; in his son's case it was 75%. Williams and his son both admitted recording rest by removing the fuses from their tachographs when the vehicles were on the move. Neil Williams said he done it because of losing t the quarry queuing, which waste up to an hour and Although he had not ben himself, he accepted the business had benefited b; ting in an extra load per da; Curtailing the licence b vehicle for the month of and suspending Neil Wil HGV licence for 14 days, ti said that it had been an atl to hide a blatant disregar the law.