hgv licence appearing in front of traffic commisioners

lor6126

hi, am looking for advice for a friend from anyone who has been called in front of traffic commisioners for tachograph offences.
Its pretty serious, 22 violations of bypassing meter,and a long ban is looking very likely, anyone have experience of this?

esmerobbo

Not personally but a friend of mine who drove a tanker was suspended for 3 years, I think he was accused of 30 odd instances of false entries.

Just found it!

http://www.roadtransport.com/Articles/2009/07/02/134011/Tacho-fiddling-drivers-from-Armet-banned.htm

lor6126

yes, 20 something offences here, are expecting licence to be revoked. They have already been given community service by the court. thanks for the link. This also involved disabling the tachogragh itself tho.

Paradigm

AFAIA tampering with the tacho unit itself can lead to up to 2 years in prison + a large fine. A community service order seems to be a "result"!

lor6126

Yes, they got off very lightly,the thing with the traffic commisioners has surfaced a year after the court case, all the drivers involved are currently still driving hgvs.

Paradigm

I drive HGVs myself but have never had the "pleasure" of having to visit the TC or do I personally know of anyone who has so I'm not prepared to guess at the outcome.

I can't imagine it will be as lenient as a community order though but who knows, he may get lucky again

Hammyman

lor6126 wrote: »

hi, am looking for advice for a friend from anyone who has been called in front of traffic commisioners for tachograph offences.
Its pretty serious, 22 violations of bypassing meter,and a long ban is looking very likely, anyone have experience of this?

At the very least it is time to look for a job outside of lorry driving. He will be found as not being of repute and will have his HGV entitlement removed in addition to fines and possibly even jail time.

And yes, he can do jail time for this.

On 23rd October 2009, two men were jailed for tachograph offences - less than your friend had done


"Colin Linder was sentenced to six months in prison after knowingly making 20 false records and disqualified from driving for 12 months. His son Sean Newson, also the CPC holder was sentenced to four months for knowingly falsifying 16 tachograph records due to, as the Judge described “misguided loyalty towards his father”.

13 drivers in Northern Ireland looking at prison time...
http://www.cwherald.com/archive/archive/13-drivers-admit-falsifying-tachograph-records-%26%238230%3B-20100723353537.htm

Suspended jail sentence and 280 hrs community service for EIGHT offences:
http://www.needlogisticstraining.com/news/index.php?ArticleID=16

And in addition to him getting done, so can his employer which can result in the employer losing their O licence and having the firm closed.

Silly billy really, especially as he will have to declare such a conviction on job applications and it'll come up in CRB checks..