Driver who posed road safety risk banned from professional driving

A HGV driver has been banned from professional driving after breaking laws designed to prevent fatigue while working.

Jason Treharne, 45, of Derwendeg, Porthrhyd, will not be able to drive goods vehicles for 18 months after an industry regulator said he had “posed a grave road safety risk” through his persistent offending.

Traffic Commissioner Kevin Rooney said: “The system of regulating drivers’ hours relies to a significant degree on honesty and it is inescapable that Mr Treharne went to great lengths to hide the true facts of his driving.”

At a driver conduct hearing in Bristol, the Traffic Commissioner was told Tehrane had been convicted of nine offences of knowingly making a false record in May 2016, following an investigation by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

All of the offences, which were committed in 2014, involved Tehrane using a driver card belonging Christopher Heydon.

It is illegal for a driver to use another driver’s card because it conceals the work that has been carried out.

The driving and other work recorded by Tehrane on Heydon’s card mainly hid daily rest offending. Drivers must take a daily rest period within each period of 24 hours after the end of the previous day or weekly rest period. 

In the period from May 7 to May 10, 2014, Tehrane was on duty for 85 hours with no qualifying daily rest period.

“There is no doubt in my mind that they are serious drivers’ hours offences and that Tehrane posed a grave road safety risk during this time,” the Traffic Commissioner said in a written decision. 

Tehrane committed the offences while working for Gretton based Gilders Transport. The Traffic Commissioner made an order to curtail the company’s transport licence indefinitely at a public inquiry in May, reducing its fleet by 20% and disqualifying its transport manager, Shaun Gilmour, for three years. 

The Commissioner also refused an application from the company to increase its fleet. 

Heydon, 49, of Market Street, Craven Arms, also received a ban from professional driving. Read more here.