Carrying Firm Fined On 23 Charges

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 12

Carrying Firm Fined On 23 Charges

A Darfield carrying company, Frews Motors Ltd., pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday to 23 charges of failing to allow drivers’ in the company’s employ the required 10-hour break between working days. Mr K. H. J. Headifen, S.M., was on the bench. The company was fined a total of £92—£4 on each charge—and ordered to pay Court costs totalling £34 10s —£l 10s on each charge. Traffic Officer B. L. Tozer said that as the result of a complaint he had viewed the time-books of drivers for the company, and the charges had been laid. All the charges related to instances where drivers had not had the required minimum break of 10 hours between working days.

He then detailed the breaks taken by the drivers on the 23 occasions. The least break taken on any one occasion was five hours. Traffic Officer Tozer said he had discussed the matter with the company manager and had been told the company found it very difficult to maintain the 10-hour break between a driver’s working days because often a driver was forced to wait about between unloading one load and loading the next. The drivers, in the main, had been employed in carrying stock and grain. Though he felt that was an explanation for the long hours the drivers had worked, on some occasions till after midnight, it did not account for the fact that, the driver’s had not had the minimum 10hour break required, Traffic Officer Tozer said. Mr R. de R. Flesher, for Frews Motors Ltd., said the offences involved only five of the company’s many drivers and the offences had all occurred within a three-week period in February. In that time farmers in the Darfield area had required cartage of hay, store sheep both to and from stock sales and wheat to mills in Christchurch. He submitted that the breaches were not as serious

as they at first appeared. In many cases the drivers had taken sheep or wheat and after unloading had had to wait around for many hours, when they were not driving, for the back load. It had been known for the unloading time for grain at a mill in Christchurch to be 6 a.m. That meant that the driver would have to start about 4 a.m. and if the truck did not arrive at the mill at the unloading time fixed then that farmer’s grain missed its opportunity of going into the mill store. Also this year the store stock sales had been fitted into a period of one month where normally they were held over a six to eight-week period. The grain harvest period last season had been shorter than normal because of the type of weather. The complaints against the company had arisen not from their own drivers but from the annual inspection by union officials.

The company had not found it possible to get for a threeweek period drivers experienced in stock and grain work, and even if it had been possible there would have been no accommodation for them, Mr Flesher said. The Magistrate said the regulation had been laid down not only for the protection of the truck drivers themselves but also in the interests of public safety. SECOND FIRM FINED

Another carrying company, Stevenson Motors, Ltd., Sheffield, pleaded guilty by letter to 11 charges of not allowing drivers a 10-hour break between working days. The company was convicted on each charge and fined a total of £44—£4 on each charge, and ordered to pay Court costs totalling £1« 10s —£l 10s on each charge. The company, in its letter, said the offences which had occurred over a period of one month arose from the need to transport stock and the transport of the grain harvest. Both these activities had been telescoped into a shorter period than necessary.