(26 Aug 2023, 1:54 pm)EastCoastMXZ1751 wrote http://nyenquirer.uk/more-woes-for-arriv...jmN3UZCJHE
Seems like arriva have been in trouble with the DVSA over the roadworthiness of over half the fleet at Whitby and/or Redcar
I notice that was posted over 2 months ago now. I'd be inclined to suggest that if there were serious "roadworthiness inadequacies", as he keeps banging on about throughout it, that we'd have heard something more 2 months on.
There's also a couple of points throughout which grabbed my attention:
- "In short, my three sources were bang on the money" - not really, the Arriva reponse notes that some issues were raised. The response doesn't state that half the fleet was not roadworthy - if that was the case I'd suggest that we'd have witnessed an even greater amount of VORs than we did, Arriva aren't going to send buses out in an unroadworthy condition following VOSA finding some issues. Aside from that, the "three sources" seems a bit of a stretch, one is directly quoted fair enough but then one is cited as overhearing part of a conversation, and there's not even a mention of a third source.
- In a fair number of industries which have regulatory bodies in one form or another, a visit from said regulatory body (which in most cases are routine) always comes with the canteen talk of "oh but if they find anything that's us done!". The fear of it is essentially the entire point of the regulator, and the visit! I'm not saying that is what has happened here, but that message from the "informant" very much strikes me of it, especially given Arriva are still running buses 2 months later.
I don't think anyone is doubting that vehicle availability could be improved at Redcar, and therefore there's obviously room for improvement with maintenance. However buses breaking down repeatedly does not necessarily equal unroadworthy, if it did then I don't think there'd be an operator in the country still going!