A LENGTHY course of dishonest conduct and previous serious offending in a heavy goods vehicle has resulted in the Scottish Traffic Commissioner (STC) disqualifying Duncan McKee from holding vocational driving entitlement for a period of five years.
The decision by STC Claire Gilmore emanated from a driver conduct hearing conjoined with the Public Inquiry in relation to Mr McKee’s father’s operator licence which was revoked (see Transport News, July 2021).
At the hearing Ms Gilmore confirmed that reports were submitted to her office by Traffic Examiner Haddow regarding ‘roadside encounters’ between the DVSA and Mr McKee in May 2018 when he was found to have committed six infringements, four of which were classified as serious.
In September 2018 data from the vehicle unit and driver card indicated that Mr McKee had committed 12 driver’s hours infringements in the previous 28 day period. On two other occasions he had pulled his driver’s card and continued to drive.
TE Haddow also reported 15 examples of ‘Quick Driver Card Changeovers’ where drivers use more than one digital card. On 13 of the occasions where quick changeovers were identified, they were between Mr McKee’s card and the one belonging to his father, Mr McKee senior. However DVSA’s investigation also revealed that Mr McKee senior’s card had been used in February and June 2019 when UK Border Control confirmed that Mr McKee senior was in Spain.
TE Haddow also revealed that Mr McKee had reported his digital driver card lost or stolen in September 2019, but analysis of the data showed that the ‘lost’ card was in use until November 2019. In fact both the old and new cards were in use on several occasions on the same days, in some cases with quick changeovers between the two cards taking place. However there was no evidence to suggest that double manning was in operation on the dates in question.
The Scottish Traffic Commissioner concluded that the above facts strongly indicated that Mr McKee had falsified records repeatedly over a lengthy period and committed the driver’s hours infringements identified by the Traffic Examiner.
Mr McKee denied that he had falsified records by using another driver’s card, or by pulling his card. However, he could he offer no explanation as to how driving off card happened, nor for the occasions when quick changeovers between his and his father’s card were identified.
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