If one of your competitors isn’t playing by the rules, your business could suffer. 

That’s why traffic commissioners are doing everything they can to get these operators off the road. 

Making sure there’s a level playing field for licence holders is one of their key aims. 

Nick Denton, Traffic Commissioner for the West Midlands, recently disqualified an operator for five years because he used a liquidated company’s O licence to run vehicles illegally. 

The licence had even been suspended but the director continued operating trucks under it. 

DVSA investigations revealed issues with drivers’ hours compliance, a 50% trailer prohibition rate, infrequent driver defect reporting and an S marked prohibition for an insecure load and serious brake defect. 

A total of 33 vehicle and trailer prohibitions had been recorded against the licence. 

The transport manager also lied to DVSA by claiming he was still TM for the operator in January 2018. He’d actually stopped working as TM in December 2016. 

Mr Denton said the transport manager’s deception allowed an unlicensed operator to continue running vehicles. If he’d told the truth the operator wouldn’t have met professional competence. 

The Traffic Commissioner called the operator’s non compliance “serious, sustained and deliberate”.

READ: Traffic Commissioner public inquiry decisions

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