Wheel loss leads to licence loss

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The operator said he was using a spanner to check that wheel nuts were tight. DEMIDOV via UNSPLASH

All Travel Minibuses lost its O-licence as a result of maintenance and compliance failings identified after a wheel loss incident

Operator Safir Shafi, trading as Alltravelminibuses, held a standard international PSV operator’s licence, granted in March 2020 and authorising two vehicles. He was also the nominated transport manager on the licence.

He had previously held a restricted PSV licence, granted in 2008 and called to a public inquiry in 2015 after having been issued with a fixed penalty for tachograph offences, though no regulatory action was taken on that occasion. In 2017 Mr Shafi was again called to a public inquiry (PI) after a DVSA visit found minimal maintenance records and driver defect reports, no forward planner, and no evidence of any brake checks. He had also received further fixed penalties for tachograph offences.

The operator supplied no financial evidence and no evidence of maintenance or other compliance at that inquiry, and the Traffic Commissioner (TC) revoked Mr Shafi’s operator’s licence with immediate effect, commenting that “the operator is not capable of managing compliance under the operating licence and has repeatedly failed to take appropriate steps despite the previous intervention of the deputy traffic commissioner and then subsequently by [the DVSA] vehicle examiner and traffic examiner. Even at date of the public inquiry he was ill-equipped.”

In April 2021, the DVSA carried out a desk-based assessment of the maintenance compliance systems of Mr Shafi’s current licence and found a number of shortcomings. There was no evidence of meaningful brake testing, of wheel removal procedure or torque register, or of a vehicle off-road (VOR) recording system, and some preventative maintenance inspection (PMI) sheets had not been signed off as roadworthy.

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