Directors charged over speeding truck drivers
Matthew Moore
May 10, 2012


POLICE and the NSW government have launched more than 1000 prosecutions against the directors and owners of four trucking companies, alleging they are responsible for speeding offences committed by their drivers as far back as January last year.   

In an unprecedented blitz, NSW Police and Roads and Maritime Services laid the charges in Parramatta Local Court late yesterday and will try to prove that under ''chain of responsibility'' provisions in the law, the owners and directors of trucking firms and the companies that use them to transport goods are all responsible for speeding offences.

While the prosecutions begun yesterday are all against small and medium sized trucking firms, police and government sources said they were also planning to prosecute a range of companies which have shipped or received goods on trucks that have been speeding. 


Using the same chain of responsibility provisions used against the trucking firms, police and officers from Roads and Maritime Services plan to prosecute companies that receive and send freight for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure trucks are not speeding.   

While many of the charges laid yesterday involve offences where drivers have already been caught and fined, many others involved offences that have never been proved and where no speeding ticket had been issued.

Police and RMS sources said they would produce evidence, including pictures from point-to-point cameras, to show the courts that trucks had been speeding and that the directors failed in their duty to ensure their drivers complied with the law. 

Since 1988 all trucks in Australia have fitted speed limiters to restrict their top speed to 100km/h, but the limiters can be tampered with and police have caught drivers travelling at speeds above 140km/h.

The prosecutions are the latest move in a government crackdown on speeding trucks after the deaths of three people on the Hume Highway at Menangle in January after a truck veered out of control and into their vehicle. The day before the truck had been recorded at 133km/h.   

Two hundred and forty six court attendance notices were lodged against NSW company Lennons Transport, and its owner Anthony Lennon, for speeding and speed limiter offences.   

The other charges were laid against Scotts, based in Mount Gambier, and two Victorian companies, Damorange and Freds Interstate Transport.

Scotts could not be contacted, but owners and directors of all other companies denied they condoned speeding or tampering with speed limiters.

Mr Lennon said if drivers were speeding it was their fault.

''The drivers are the ones on the road, it's their issue … My trucks are getting checked and they never find anything,'' he said.

Daniel Borg, from Freds, said he would plead not guilty and accused NSW authorities of running a public relations stunt.

''This is the way these guys work, this is a 'shock and awe' campaign. You can't create the sort of fanfare they have created without charging someone,'' he said. ''It really is a very unfortunate situation. It does a massive amount of damage to your reputation … If there's one or two that have been tampered with it's not been done by an owner or director,'' he said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/directors-charged-over-speeding-truck-drivers-20120509-1yd4n.html#ixzz1uPHhHrwK

Hang em and hang em high.

Good post Crook.

Quote:



Hi Crook - you must have seen that movie too. 


Go to 1.54 in this clip.