A JUDGE has warned that tired truckers could kill other road users as he jailed a lorry driver for 30 weeks for breaking driving hours regulations.
Andrew Clorley, 48, admitted that on 11 occasions he failed to take a proper rest.
Mold Crown Court heard that when he ran out of hours he put in a fresh tachograph sheet in the name of another driver.
But the truth was that Clorley was in financial difficulties and he was in fact the driver at all times.
Clorley, of Chester Road, Penley near Wrexham, an owner/driver trading as A. Clorley Transport, admitted 11 breaches of the tachograph regulations.
Clorley drove his 44-tonne articulated truck loaded with chipboard from the Kronospan factory in Chirk along the A470 to South Wales.
Jailing him yesterday, Judge Rhys Rowlands said Clorley was driving along a difficult road, long distances, in an articulated truck and that created a very real danger. Clorley was behind the wheel clearly tired in order to make more money, he said.
“On seven occasions you drove more than 13 hours when the regulations stipulate that it should be no more than nine hours,” he said.
“You were behind the wheel of a very large vehicle, driving long distances around Wales, when it would have been unsafe for you to have been driving,” Judge Rowlands told him.
It had not simply been dishonest, making money by competing unfairly with legitimate operators, but he put other road users at risk, he said.
“Owners who flout the regulations almost inevitably had to be dealt with by immediate custodial sentences,” he said.
If drivers were tired and such vehicles were involved in accidents then the consequences could be fatal and often were.
Mark Stanger, prosecuting, said the offences came to light during a routine check by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, (VOSA).
An examination of the tachograph charts showed that on occasions in September and October of last year the driver was sometimes Clorley and on other occasions a man named Eric Groves.
It turned out that Mr Groves was a former employee who had not worked for Clorley at that time and at times was out of the country when Clorley claimed he had been driving for him.
Clorley had driven and created the other driver to conceal the hours he had driven.
On one of the days he had driven for 14 hours and 12 minutes.
James Cullen, defending, said Clorley had at the time been £72,000 in debt but he had entered into a voluntary agreement with his creditors and had reduced it to £30,000.
He was still working for his own company and was petrified of jail. If he was jailed then the business would go and he would lose his home.
Mr Cullen said he had stopped doing it long before a check by the authorities brought it to light.