A Glasgow-based waste management firm has had its licence curtailed for the next twelve months as a result of driver related misdemeanours and the company’s failure to adhere to safety standards.

Dow Waste Management Ltd (Dow), a family run company that offers skip hire, recycling and various other waste management services, was penalised for various offences relating to drivers’ hours.

Dow, appearing at a public inquiry in Edinburgh, has had its license curtailed to 13 vehicles and four trailers (down from its usual 15 vehicles and four trailers), preventing business expansion for the next 12 months. Three drivers for the firm also incurred punishment with suspensions to their driving entitlements ranging from ten days to three weeks in October.

Safety Standards and Competition

The decision was made by Scotland’s traffic commissioner, Joan Aitken, after hearing evidence from company Director, Sheila Baxter, and Transport Manager, Sheila Dow. Aitken noted that the offences, including ‘false records and exceeding 4.5 hours driving without taking the required break’, work against safety standards and fair competition between operators.

Speaking at the hearing, Aitken said; “A fundamental part of working time and driving is the need to take breaks and to be refreshed as such.

“These drivers working in waste and with skips do need to be alert – I have seen too many cases of accidents flowing from poor decision making by skip drivers – and they need to be alert to other road users.”

The public inquiry followed an investigation by the government inspection body, Vehicle Operator and Services Agency (VOSA). A VOSA traffic examiner was sent to DOW after an allegation was received claiming that drivers had been ‘driving during periods of suspension and working excessive hours and not adhering to the drivers hours regulations’.

The officer examined digital records for 546 days of driving (and 67 tachograph sheets) and found: six false records; 14 occasion of failure to record; three incidents of drivers exceeding the permitted four and half hours driving; and six instances where a vehicle had been driven without the digital recording card inserted. The examiner judged that the removal of digital recording cards was a deliberate move used by drivers when a break was required, but they wished to carry on working.

Accordingly, the officer found that a total of 2,884 kilometres were missing from the data. Further, some record sheets for a driver who had left the company and not handed in his charts were missing while some records were left in a vehicle when it was sent for repair. VOSA also discovered that one driver had been driving heavy good vehicles for around 10 years, but had not received any drivers hours training.

The officer said that the level of infringements might have been regarded to be be small, but the ‘detected infringements were serious’. She added that often it had been difficult to obtain all the required documents from the company during her investigation’.

Dow Haulage Ltd, a business connected to Dow Waste Management, had been at Public Inquiry on three separate occasions: once in June 2008; once in January 2009; and once in July 2010, following ‘adverse’ vehicle examiner reports. All of these inquiries resulted in licence curtailments.

While accepting that ‘steps had been taken to improve compliance following the VOSA investigation’, Aitken pointed to past offences committed by Dow Haulage Ltd, a ‘previous business connected to the company’.

In her decision, Aitken said: “In the past cases the inquiries were prompted by environmental and roadworthiness issues. This time I find that the undertakings in relation to drivers’ hours and tachographs have not been met – the Traffic Examiner’s evidence was accepted in all material respects.

“What was most vexing in this case was the inordinate effort to which the thorough Traffic Examiner had to go to get any sort of reasonable picture of what was going on. That simply will not do. A compliant operator and transport manager should be able to evidence within hours – not weeks or months – that drivers are compliant and that in cases where they are not, there is an audit trail of infringement identification and either training/mentoring or disciplinary action. This operator and transport manager have fallen short.”

Adding that there was “insufficient evidence to make a finding against the repute of either operator or transport manager”, Aitken said that a licence curtailment was needed due to the breach of ‘licence undertakings’.

She concluded: "I consider that I must curtail this licence and that such curtailment must remove the margin and thus prevent expansion for a significant time to re-balance fair competition and to protect the licensing regime. I curtail the licence from 15 vehicles and 4 trailers to 13 vehicles and 4 trailers licence and that for a period of one year.

“I make it one year as I have been lenient in not cutting into the level of specified vehicles and to mark my displeasure at this further Inquiry and the time expended by the Traffic Examiner in getting a true picture. Such a period should serve to ensure sustained compliance with all of the licence undertakings and the transition to new transport management.”

Read the Traffic Commissioner's full written decision.