A Perthshire bus firm has been ordered to remove 20% of its fleet from the roads after a wheel detached from one of its vehicles on the A90.
Smith and Sons Coaches of Coupar Angus was reported to the traffic commissioner following the incident at Kinfauns in December and has been told to run only 20 coaches instead of 25 until January.
Defects in other buses which rendered them “unroadworthy” were also later uncovered at the firm, which carries out school runs, private hire and the Broxden park-and-ride and Broxden to PRI routes in Perth.
A public inquiry in Edinburgh this month heard how the driver on the A90 on December 9 became aware of “vibration” to the rear of his bus and managed to slowly brake and pull into a lay-by where it was found the wheel had “fully detached”. It is unclear if there were passengers on board at the time.
Bosses from the 37-year-old family firm failed to report the matter for over three months but put in place their own procedures to prevent recurrence. Despite these, a March visit by a vehicle inspector uncovered a catalogue of problems and ordered one bus immediately off the road because of a brake defect.
There was still no explanation why the wheel had come off the other bus.
The inspector found “preventative maintenance inspections throughout the year may not have been to annual test standards”.
Appearing for the firm, partner Ian Smith outlined the more rigorous procedures now in place but admitted his company “needed to come into the 21st century and to look after the vehicles to a better standard.”
In a ruling issued on Monday, traffic commissioner Joan Aitken said, “It is extremely fortunate that no one was hurt in this incident and that the driver was able to pull into a lay-by in the nick of time.”
She hit out at the firm for failing to report the matter earlier so remedial action could be taken sooner.
She said, “The operator had taken the wheel loss incident seriously and put in place some steps towards preventing recurrence of such an incident. Unfortunately, the operator’s understanding of the steps needed to prevent recurrence was insufficient and the vehicle examiner had to give further advice. The operator would still benefit from greater insight.
“The operator has accepted that the workshop management has allowed itself to become out of date and that standards are not how they should have been. This is reflected very starkly by the high rate of failures at annual test not simply for one or two defects at any given time but more often for a range of defects.
“Thus, the vehicles were being sent in an unroadworthy condition when presented at annual test and I am in no doubt from the evidence in this case that the standard of preventative maintenance inspections was not such that the vehicles would have been at annual test standard throughout the working year.”
She said the “very serious” annual test failure rate and loss of the wheel rendered a warning insufficient punishment but revoking or suspending the operating licence would be “disproportionate” after the remedial work undertaken.
She said the firm could have gained a competitive advantage by failing to invest in its fleet properly when other companies have done so.
Photo used under a Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user markhillary.