COURT & INQUIRY LEGAL
76 TRUCKING August 2019 http://www.truckingmag.co.uk
Short Logistics Ltd
SEVEN-YEAR
DISQUALIFICATION
FOR DIRECTOR & TM
The sole director and
transport manager of
Rugby-based Short Logistics
Ltd, Jaroslav Kratky, was
disqualified from holding an
O-licence and acting as a
transport manager for a period of
seven years after the company’s
national licence for seven
vehicles and seven trailers was
revoked by traffic commissioner
Nick Denton, following a
Birmingham public inquiry.
In making the revocation and
disqualification orders, the
commissioner said Mr Kratky had
knowingly presided over serious
illegalities such as the lack of an
operating centre, numerous and
serious driver’s hours offences,
and a vehicle displaying false
plates to disguise the fact it was
untaxed and uninsured.
Traffic examiner Graham Slaney
reported not only was the
company not using its authorised
operating centre, it was not using
the one in Oban Road, Coventry
that Mr Kratky claimed it was
using. The driver of a vehicle
stopped in November 2018 was
found to have driven without his
tachograph card on nine
occasions. Other roadside stops
of the company’s vehicles had
revealed numerous driver’s hours
offences, including offences by
Mr Kratky himself.
Interviewed under caution, Mr
Kratky had accepted he had no
procedures in place for ensuring
tachographs were correctly
calibrated, for detecting missing
mileage, for ensuring drivers took
the minimum required daily and
weekly rest periods, or for
ensuring drivers did not exceed
4.5 hours of driving and the
maximum daily driving periods.
Asked if he thought he was
exercising continuous and
effective control of the transport
activities of the company, he had
replied “probably not”. No
tachograph analysis reports could
be produced; Mr Kratky was
relying on drivers to tell him of
any infringements.
The commissioner said he had
received a report from vehicle
examiner Gary Hickin that the
company’s prohibition rate was
high, with 11 prohibitions from 31
roadside encounters – three of
which were S-marked.
A vehicle given a prohibition for
incomplete spray suppression
equipment on June 12, 2018 was
subsequently encountered on the
road on August 14, 2018 when
the prohibition was still in force. A
vehicle given an S-marked
prohibition on February 1, 2019
was displaying the numberplates
of another vehicle. It was SORN’d
at the time and should not have
been used on a public road.
The driver defect reporting
system was inadequate, with
drivers who were away for the
week trusted to carry out checks.
For one vehicle, there was no
evidence any checks had been
carried out over a two-year
period. The company had not
used the authorised operating
centre since January 2016.
After the commissioner pointed
out bank statements produced
showed average available funds
over the last three months of
£8602, far below the £34,700
necessary to support seven
vehicles, Mr Kratky said there
were a number of outstanding
invoices which, when paid, would
help close the gap.
Asked where his vehicles were
currently kept when not in use,
Mr Kratky said it was at the site in
Oban Road, Coventry.
The commissioner pointed out
Mr Slaney had visited the
premises at Oban Road, spoken
to the site owner and found Short
Logistics had no arrangement to
park vehicles there. One of the
company’s vehicles had parked
on an ad hoc basis there for two
days in September 2018, and Mr
Kratky then accepted his vehicles
parked in various service stations
around the country where they
happened to be when they
stopped for the night or weekend.
After the commissioner had said
he noted that, from the driver’s
hours records provided, drivers
were committing huge numbers
of infringements, Mr Kratky
explained his computer had
broken and he had not been able
to analyse the data until recently.
He accepted he had failed to
download the vehicle units and
check for driving without a card.
Asked whether these were
genuine documents signed on
the dates indicated, Mr Kratky
said they were. Asked how it was
possible for documents only
printed out on March 3 to have
been signed in January and
February, Mr Kratky replied he did
not know what to say.
In relation to the vehicle with
the wrong registration plates, Mr
Kratky said the numberplates of
the vehicle concerned had gone
missing and a driver had taken it
upon himself to fit to the vehicle
a spare set of plates belonging to
another vehicle. He had been the
driver on February 1, but had not
noticed the vehicle had the
wrong plates.
The commissioner said the
traffic examiner who had
checked the vehicle had stated
she had asked Mr Kratky if he
had realised it was an offence to
fit the wrong registration plates to
a vehicle, and he had replied:
“DVLA OK with it. I like it to look
younger, it’s good for business.”
Mr Kratky denied he had said to
the traffic examiner.
Asked why a vehicle had been
operated for two months without
a prohibition being cleared, Mr
Kratky said he had not been
aware of the prohibition because
the driver had not informed him.
Mr Kratky said the driver’s
hours records had greatly
improved. He would be checking
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the drivers’ cards every two
weeks – he had purchased new
software to analyse both driver
card and vehicle data. He would
like the opportunity to correct
matters. As part of that, he had
applied for a new operating
centre in Tamworth.
At the conclusion of his decision,
the commissioner said given Mr
Kratky’s proven willingness to flout
the law, he was requesting DVSA
and the police to employ their
ANPR and on-road resources to
identify and stop vehicles
operated by Short Logistics. Any
such vehicle they find carrying
goods on the public road after the
revocation date would be liable to
be impounded.
Since the Public Inquiry, he had
been informed DVSA had stopped
one of the company’s vehicles on
April 1, 2019 and had found it was
fitted with a device which had the
ability to interrupt the signal to the
tachograph head and cause the
latter to default to rest, even if the
vehicle was moving. Comments
received from the company were
to the effect that the vehicle’s
tachograph had been recalibrated
only on March 27, 2019 with
nothing untoward found. The
traffic examiner noted she would
not expect a routine calibration to
detect a manipulation device,
which would clearly not be in
operation during the calibration.
As the DVSA’s inquiries were
continuing to try to establish the
vehicle’s movements around the
UK and compare that with the
tacho data, a process which
might be hampered by the fact
the company had operated two
different vehicles under one set of
registration plates, he had
decided not to take account of
that issue in his decision. If DVSA
eventually produced a report, he
might recall Mr Kratky to an
Inquiry with a view to extending
his disqualification.