10,535 km without driver cards cost this haulier 10 trucks

From 70 to 60 trucks

Pentons Haulage & Coldstorage runs operating centres in Oswestry and Shrewsbury. Its main business is cold storage and national food distribution. It held a licence for 70 vehicles and 100 trailers in the West Midlands traffic area.

After a public inquiry on 23 September 2026, Deputy Traffic Commissioner Dr Paul Stookes curtailed the licence indefinitely by 10 vehicles. The cut took effect at 23:45 on 2 October 2026. The authorisation for 100 trailers was not changed, according to the Traffic Commissioner decision.

It was the first time the operator had been called to a public inquiry since it was granted its licence in the 1990s.

Nine drivers, 16 missing card incidents

The traffic examiner’s report identified “10,535 kilometres of vehicle movements undertaken without a driver card being inserted”. The examiner found that the problems involved individual drivers rather than the whole system. However, managers did not spot or deal with them at the time.

The decision lists incidents involving nine drivers. The longest journeys were:

• 459 km over 6 hours and 48 minutes,
• 295 km over 5 hours and 40 minutes,
• 274 km over 4 hours and 14 minutes, recorded in “out of scope” mode,
• 151 km over 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Many other incidents covered only a few kilometres. One of the drivers also had five further tachograph convictions, with fines totalling £800.

The Commissioner found no deliberate falsification or commercial gain. He noted that drivers were often unaware they were breaking the law and that the operator did not tell them at the time. One driver explained that he “wasn’t sure how to do it, every time I did try it flashed numbers and I messed it up”.

Maintenance and roadside checks

The tachograph findings were not the only problem. A DVSA maintenance investigation in December 2025 rated two areas as unsatisfactory. The concerns covered inspection and maintenance records, emissions and eight roadside inspections with enforcement action in the previous 11 months.

The Commissioner also listed:

• an S-marked prohibition issued in October 2025,
• fixed penalty notices from June and October 2025,
• failure to keep to the stated safety inspection intervals,
• failure to keep vehicles fit and serviceable.

A DVSA report from September 2026, ahead of the inquiry, found the documents in an approved format and overall satisfactory.

“Severely tarnished but not lost”

The Commissioner found “a failure by the operator to exercise effective and continuous management control of its transport activities”. Between August and November 2025, there was not continuous and effective management of some of the drivers.

He said that responsibility lay with the operator and its directors. He did not blame former transport manager Anthony Harris. The repute of both Mr Harris and transport manager Stephen Penton was found to be “severely tarnished but not lost”. The Commissioner suggested that the company consider appointing a third transport manager. Any future nomination of Mr Harris on an operator licence must be referred to a traffic commissioner.

He described the case as “serious to moderate”, but said he trusted the operator to be compliant in the future. He noted that driver management had improved since a second transport manager returned in January 2026. The drivers’ cases are dealt with in separate decisions.

Independent audit by March 2027

Pentons gave an undertaking to commission an independent audit of its transport safety and compliance systems, covering maintenance and drivers’ hours. The report and the operator’s plan to implement it must be submitted by 31 March 2027.

The case is a reminder that tachograph problems do not have to be deliberate to cost an operator vehicles. Recently, another haulier was shut down after 1,076 days without a tachograph download, while in the Netherlands an inspection found 841 days without a tachograph reading.