- Nick Denton reminds transport managers about statutory duties and responsibilities
- Indefinite disqualification order made against TM who became a full-time driver for operator and failed to carry out TM duties
- TM was supposed to be checking drivers didn’t break rules but was himself committing offences
Philip Haynes-Smith, who resigned from his post with Masters Haulage Ltd in February 2017, hadn’t performed the role of transport manager for five years and was found to have a “worrying lack of knowledge” of the drivers’ hours rules.
Nick Denton, the Traffic Commissioner for the West Midlands, said the simple fact was that Mr Haynes-Smith completely failed to exercise any of the required functions for the role.
He was also identified as one of the firm’s worst offending drivers after a Driver and Vehicle Services Agency (DVSA) investigation.
The industry regulator ruled Mr Haynes-Smith had lost his good repute as a transport manager after a public inquiry on 18 July in Birmingham.
Mr Denton remarked, “a transport manager’s responsibilities cannot be negotiated or neglected. It’s never acceptable for the TM named on an operator’s licence to simply stop carrying out their duties.
“Where circumstances change, transport managers must be proactive. If the TM is asked to take on another role in the business and that affects their transport duties, they need to speak to the licence holder immediately. If their concerns are not addressed, TMs should recognise the potential impact own repute and professional competence.”
Masters Haulage Ltd came before the Traffic Commissioner as a result of a DVSA investigation in December 2016. Examiners from the agency reported a number of issues with vehicle and safety standards, including that:
- vehicles operated by the firm were not being inspected every six weeks as required – on some occasions they were not checked for 16 weeks
- the company had a prohibition rate of 67% over two years – the national average was 28%
- the MOT failure rate for the firm’s vehicles was 38% over a two year period
- over 12,000km of vehicle mileage could not be accounted for by the company
- there was no evidence that the business had been checking what records its drivers were keeping and whether they were committing offences
Mr Denton revoked the company’s operator licence with immediate effect and disqualified its director, Shaughan Genna, who had failed to attend the inquiry. He said the “irresponsibility” of Mr Genna meant that his firm – Masters Haulage Ltd – had operated in an “almost wholly non-compliant manner”.
In a written decision issued after the hearing, Mr Denton remarked, “over a period of several years, [Mr Genna] ran the business without a functioning transport manager and in an almost wholly non-compliant manner. His irresponsibility, in failing to send vehicles for their periodic safety checks and n entirely ignoring the drivers’ hours rules and the multiple offences his drivers were committing, is of the gravest concern.”
