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CROSSHIRE: ONE OF THOSE WEEKS Have you ever had one of those weeks that you would rather forget? Ours started off recently with a demand from that nice Mr Livingstone’s Congestion Department in London, with regard to a penalty for alleged non-payment of charges over several consecutive days. Now, because we are the thick end of 200 miles from the said metropolis, and as the last time I sent a vehicle there was in an age when Express Dairies was still delivering milk with cardboard bottle tops, I was confident that an error of some sort had been made. The vehicle registration number quoted was an old one - and even Crosshire does not run vehicles of a corresponding vintage - so I took it upon myself to make some enquiries. However, Big Fred suddenly shouted out “That’s the roller the council used to have off us!” Sure enough, it was indeed the registration number of a good old Stothert & Pitt Vibroll that had never been raced or rallied by our local authority before its cosy ‘patching department’ had been so rudely privatised more than ten years ago. Now, I had to search the very dusty archives to see exactly what we had done with the machine. Of course, it had vanished in a scrap purge some time ago, but no one had bothered to remove the registration plate. Most clients didn’t bother about having such plant road registered, but the council always insisted on it. As it didn’t actually cost anything to tax a roller in those days, it always seemed a pointless exercise but it kept the machine out on hire permanently for many years! Further enquiries led to the discovery that the registration number was now apparently to be found on posh new plates affixed to a flashy 4 x 4. The time and trouble it took to sort this mess out was quite unbelievable and it illustrates that, while we all probably do the right thing with our road vehicles, it is all too easy to miss out on advising the authorities when we have disposed of road registered plant. What was even more galling was that the 4 x 4 in question had probably been nicked and was being used by the likely lads to acquire more plant without the burden of paying for it. Just as I had sorted this situation out, I got a call from some bloke at our County Council with a title so long that I missed it twice, although I did catch the word ‘enforcement’ in it. He was tasked with hounding farmers and anyone else who is involved in the practice of placing advertising signs on tatty old trailers where they can be seen from busy roads. He informed us that we were in contravention of some new byelaw designed to stop this form of promotion. Well, you have no doubt guessed that the remains of the trailer he had just inspected still had enough of one of our decals on it for him to track us down. My diligent staff had followed standing instructions and removed our name - but not our phone number! Luckily, I did recall who had bought this particular trailer and did a Teflon sidestep on this occasion. The next morning, just when I was thinking that nothing else untoward could happen, I received a shock to the wallet when our waste disposal contractor sent a bill for ‘unauthorised material’ having been included in our last loaded general waste skip. On this occasion, Mr or Ms Nobody from my loyal staff had put some dud fluorescent lighting tubes in our skip which, as you may know, is a serious environmental crime that probably carries a maximum sentence of four hours of being lashed to the blades of a wind turbine in the Outer Hebrides. Of course, the lesson to be learnt from such an event-filled week is that we must now ensure we pay great attention to what we dispose of, and to whom. Otherwise, it may come back to bite us. Executive Hire News › Archives › October 2007 › Crosshire › One Of Those Weeks
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