A traffic commissioner's discretion has saved George Allinson (Transport) from the impositon of a penalty on its O-licence. At the end of a disciplinary inquiry at Leeds last week, North-east TC Tom Macartney decided to take no action against the company despite an apparently poor prohibition record. Macartney said he took account of the operator's size and of its diligence. The firm had been called before Macartney after receiving 14 immediate and 17 delayed prohibitions in five years - including
five'S' marked prohibitions - and five warning letters. Gary Hodgson, representing the Darlington-based operator, said that attracting fitters had proved difficult. He told of measures taken by the company to improve:
Managing director and transport manager David Allinson told Macartney that he visited the workshop up to three times a week, and that every prohibition was thoroughly investigated with a written explanation sent to the traffic office area. The prohibitions were caused by driver or fitter errors. Allinson's has an international licence and possesses 87 vehicles and 235 trailers. Macartney said that although the company's track record looked bad, he
had rarely seen an operator that took it so seriously. He commented that a driver or a fitter was occasionally going to let down a large fleet and he was satisfied that fewer problems would occur in light of the remedial measures.
This result contrasts with VOSA's new statistically based operator compliance risk score used to target non-compliant operators. At the MT Fleet Management conference earlier this month, North-west traffic commissioner Beverley Bell and haulage lawyer Stephen Kirkbright had strongly defended both the independence and the discretion of traffic commissioners.
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