LICENSING chiefs handed out suspensions to two taxi drivers earlier this week.

Bolton Council’s traffic matters licensing sub-committee imposed the penalties at a town hall meeting earlier this week.

Members heard a private hire driver was caught breaking the speed limit on a motor in November last year.

They acknowledged the driver had declared his conviction as required by the conditions of his licence. But the driver had previously appeared before the committee in April 2011 in connection with three other offences.

The panel imposed a hit with a two-week suspension, noting that “drivers have a duty to adhere to speed limits at all times and exceeding them can be a real danger to public safety.”

A second private hire driver was suspended for four weeks. He had committed two “minor and intermediate offences” in August and December last year, including exceeding the passenger vehicle speed limit.

But members were concerned he had failed to declare either of the convictions and felt the offences occurring within four months of each other — suggested he was “developing a pattern of bad driving habits”. But the panel also renewed two private hire vehicle licences after finding the drivers to be “fit and proper persons”.