Big fine for stagecoach,the age of the bus driver surprised me…shame the company ignored all the warnings that were given about his driving beforehand.
Personally I’d count the driver as a victim in all this too,his employers should of heeded the warnings and protected others aswell as himself.
google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky … e-11564998
When the driver score comes consistently as poor, it should be flagging up some serious problems as it sounds like they’ve got a microlise type system. Apparently it didn’t at this spot, plus all the reports from passengers.
Company gets fined but by looks of things directors don’t face anything unless that comes later. MD was in front of the court so still defo not been arrested. Wouldn’t be surprised if drivers get made redundent or just lose jobs as it goes into admin. 
£114 million operating profit last year, think they will be ok
Yes, they make more than £2.3 million in the “Bus company VAT fiddle” alone.
Working 70hr* weeks at 77 years old.
Understaffed depot maybe?
“Gotta get those buses out”
“He’ll be OK”
Manager’s bonus at risk if wheels don’t turn.
If someone is suffering from dementia then they are not going to be the best judge of their own condition.
None of us are good at judging our own abilities, but dementia maybe more so?
It needs someone else to recognise the signs and take action. 4 accidents in 3 years should be a clue surely?
(*source BBC)
Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
xichrisxi:
Big fine for stagecoach,the age of the bus driver surprised me…shame the company ignored all the warnings that were given about his driving beforehand.
Personally I’d count the driver as a victim in all this too,his employers should of heeded the warnings and protected others aswell as himself.
google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky … e-11564998
Yet… If a respected member on here such as HarryMonk or Robroy said they’d been hauled into the office because of a computer-generated score, people would be up in arms saying that the person moaning should trust the driver and not the scoring system.
If his driving was truly shocking then surely passengers would have complained? I’m not justifying him. But I’ve had the red warning sign in the truck go off because someone pulled in front of me. Or for no reason at all. And I’d be less than impressed if I had to justify this when I got back from a 13-15 hour shift.
The MD at the time has moved on. The one named in that article is newly appointed.
Can honestly say now it’s over that standing in the dock getting roasted by two barristers about this was the most unpleasant thing I’ve ever endured but now it’s over I can talk about it a bit more.
The 70hrs is slightly inaccurate - his duty hours were 55 for the week, that’s clock to clock not including breaks totalling 2.5hrs in each shift. The reported hours include his travel time to and from work.
Franglais:
Working 70hr* weeks at 77 years old.Understaffed depot maybe?
“Gotta get those buses out”
“He’ll be OK”
Manager’s bonus at risk if wheels don’t turn.If someone is suffering from dementia then they are not going to be the best judge of their own condition.
None of us are good at judging our own abilities, but dementia maybe more so?
It needs someone else to recognise the signs and take action. 4 accidents in 3 years should be a clue surely?(*source BBC)
Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
Yes the depot likely understaffed - as evidenced by the fact a 77 year old was working the hours he was.
The thing is, why did the company not adhere to the report on the driving assessment which clearly stated not to use the driver for excessive hours. This they recognised by their plea in the trial. The MD at the time moved on prior to the trial starting.
Just a relief driver.
That company had enough warnings about him, the last being 48 hours before the crash. The bosses should be in jail for this.
speedlink83:
Franglais:
Working 70hr* weeks at 77 years old.Understaffed depot maybe?
“Gotta get those buses out”
“He’ll be OK”
Manager’s bonus at risk if wheels don’t turn.If someone is suffering from dementia then they are not going to be the best judge of their own condition.
None of us are good at judging our own abilities, but dementia maybe more so?
It needs someone else to recognise the signs and take action. 4 accidents in 3 years should be a clue surely?(*source BBC)
Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
Yes the depot likely understaffed - as evidenced by the fact a 77 year old was working the hours he was.
The thing is, why did the company not adhere to the report on the driving assessment which clearly stated not to use the driver for excessive hours. This they recognised by their plea in the trial. The MD at the time moved on prior to the trial starting.
The report wasn’t escalated correctly. It was filed away and was never made aware to the likes of myself who used to control the operation. Much like any passenger complaints, the outcomes of which were beyond my level and protected due to confidentiality.
Harry Monk:
Yes, they make more than £2.3 million in the “Bus company VAT fiddle” alone.
Not sure on the annual turnover of the operating company but the fine may be a year’s profit to them. Still, the fine is big enough for Stagecoach to understand the significance - in the only language they understand - money.
As a former bus scheduler who worked elsewhere in Stagecoach I can attest to the fact they are highly efficient users of vehicles and of people. When building up duties it was commonplace to exceed domestic driving hours rules by using the stand time at bus stops/stations/outer terminal points as ‘break’ time - so a single piece of driving could exceed 5hours 30 minutes.
I know of one shift at a depot which used the ■■■■■■■■■■ stand time principle to provide a 45 minute break across the entire working day. Legal but not friendly to the driver, and no room whatsoever for late running.
There is a reason why Stagecoach always have driving vacancies at their depots. Who wants to chase their tail for 5 and a half hours, deal with the customers and other road users?
toonsy:
The report wasn’t escalated correctly. It was filed away and was never made aware to the likes of myself who used to control the operation. Much like any passenger complaints, the outcomes of which were beyond my level and protected due to confidentiality.
It’s something as you say would be the preserve of an Ops Manager but it’d be down to them to ‘advise’ the control staff accordingly. I read a fair amount of the trial coverage online but it’s not something anyone would wish to go through. 
halewood:
Just a relief driver.
That company had enough warnings about him, the last being 48 hours before the crash. The bosses should be in jail for this.
The driver in the case had driven for them since the 1970s and retired at 65. Post retirement they retained him as a casual driver - which is something all bus companies do with loyal long serving staff. They do however work a fixed number of hours, or days of the week. He would have had an annual medical and be passed fit to drive - but there was a paper trail that sadly didn’t get followed.
speedlink83:
Franglais:
Working 70hr* weeks at 77 years old.Understaffed depot maybe?
“Gotta get those buses out”
“He’ll be OK”
Manager’s bonus at risk if wheels don’t turn.If someone is suffering from dementia then they are not going to be the best judge of their own condition.
None of us are good at judging our own abilities, but dementia maybe more so?
It needs someone else to recognise the signs and take action. 4 accidents in 3 years should be a clue surely?(*source BBC)
Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
Yes the depot likely understaffed - as evidenced by the fact a 77 year old was working the hours he was.
The thing is, why did the company not adhere to the report on the driving assessment which clearly stated not to use the driver for excessive hours. This they recognised by their plea in the trial. The MD at the time moved on prior to the trial starting.
Just on the age thing, it’s very difficult to get rid of someone and include age. There’s an 88 year old NHS administrator going to tribunal claiming she was discriminated against because of her age.
We had a driver aged 71 who loved the job, highly dependable, liked doing the foreign runs. He didn’t need the money. We tried suggesting he go part time, but he didn’t want to. Crucially, he was a good driver. Stagecoach should have queried his accident record and reviewed performance, but not made it age related.
albion:
Just on the age thing, it’s very difficult to get rid of someone and include age. There’s an 88 year old NHS administrator going to tribunal claiming she was discriminated against because of her age.We had a driver aged 71 who loved the job, highly dependable, liked doing the foreign runs. He didn’t need the money. We tried suggesting he go part time, but he didn’t want to. Crucially, he was a good driver. Stagecoach should have queried his accident record and reviewed performance, but not made it age related.
It comes down to capability. I have an operator friend who does employ older drivers, and they have specific work on certain days of the week. And they’re not working more than 5/6 hours a day.
In this case it wouldn’t have been difficult to have given the driver a specific roster with 2/3 days of work even just stating ‘relief’ on the roster line and fixed the hours appropriately.
speedlink83:
albion:
Just on the age thing, it’s very difficult to get rid of someone and include age. There’s an 88 year old NHS administrator going to tribunal claiming she was discriminated against because of her age.We had a driver aged 71 who loved the job, highly dependable, liked doing the foreign runs. He didn’t need the money. We tried suggesting he go part time, but he didn’t want to. Crucially, he was a good driver. Stagecoach should have queried his accident record and reviewed performance, but not made it age related.
It comes down to capability. I have an operator friend who does employ older drivers, and they have specific work on certain days of the week. And they’re not working more than 5/6 hours a day.
In this case it wouldn’t have been difficult to have given the driver a specific roster with 2/3 days of work even just stating ‘relief’ on the roster line and fixed the hours appropriately.
I agree completely. It should have been evident there was a problem. I was just pointing out from an employers pov, you can’t use age alone since there will always be people who think older people shouldn’t do x, y or z.
I wonder what will the West Midlands TC make of this?
Will Stagecoach get called to a PI? What will happen to the O licence?
sammym:
If his driving was truly shocking then surely passengers would have complained?
Apparently he’d had many complaints from passengers about his driving.
It seems business requirements overrode the many warning signs his driving was sub-standard.
A driving assessment in April 2015 suggested Chander ‘may have been capable of driving to the satisfactory standard, if properly rested’.
But a warning to maintain his limited hours was ‘not enforced, and almost immediately ignored’ by depot managers.
The court also heard the firm had failed to follow its own procedures by not monitoring his working hours, with the driver at the wheel for three consecutive 75-hour weeks prior to the crash.
It’s just shocking, criminal negligence at the very least, but this shouldn’t just be some wake-up call for the passenger transport industry, it should also be a kick up the jacksy for haulage and other industries, where continuous long hours at work are seen as acceptable, even though there is much evidence shows how important proper rest is.
sammym:
xichrisxi:
Big fine for stagecoach,the age of the bus driver surprised me…shame the company ignored all the warnings that were given about his driving beforehand.
Personally I’d count the driver as a victim in all this too,his employers should of heeded the warnings and protected others aswell as himself.
google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky … e-11564998Yet… If a respected member on here such as HarryMonk or Robroy said they’d been hauled into the office because of a computer-generated score, people would be up in arms saying that the person moaning should trust the driver and not the scoring system.
If his driving was truly shocking then surely passengers would have complained? I’m not justifying him. But I’ve had the red warning sign in the truck go off because someone pulled in front of me. Or for no reason at all. And I’d be less than impressed if I had to justify this when I got back from a 13-15 hour shift.
It wasn’t a Microlise style computer generated score - it resulted from (more than one) driving assessment by a real live human being and yes, several passengers had complained about his erratic driving and he had been involved in several lesser accidents (which is why he had been assessed on multiple occasions). The bottom line here is that the company’s own procedures had identified problems with his driving and yet they still kept sending him out…
Roymondo:
It wasn’t a Microlise style computer generated score - it resulted from (more than one) driving assessment by a real live human being and yes, several passengers had complained about his erratic driving and he had been involved in several lesser accidents (which is why he had been assessed on multiple occasions). The bottom line here is that the company’s own procedures had identified problems with his driving and yet they still kept sending him out…
Stagecoach use GreenRoad which is similar to microlise - so there would have been flags via that system. This was alluded to in the trial but you’d look at this in tandem with the complaints, which was a missed opportunity.