Driving Licences - Employers / Operators'

Employers’ (Operators') liability
The Road Traffic Act states that is an offence to cause or permit someone to drive a motor vehicle without a valid driving licence.

It is an employer’s responsibility to carry out driving licence checks on all employees and indeed on anyone who drives one of their company vehicles, irrespective of whether they are driving a commercial vehicle or a company car.. So, if you are an operator and if a garage or repairer picks up one of your vehicles you have a responsibility to ensure that they are suitably insured to take your vehicle out on the public highway. Never use the old chestnut "it's not my problem"!!!

Employers are at serious risk if their employees/drivers are on the road without a valid driving licence or are driving a company vehicle whilst holding a licence that does not give them legal eligibility to drive that vehicle. No valid licence automatically means that person is not insured, so double jeapardy for both driver and the operator!

As an employer and operator it is your responsibility to:

• regularly verify the driving licence entitlement of every employee/driver under your control
• hold on file a copy of all employee’s driving licences - but always ask to see the original and complete driving licence when carrying out regular licence checks.

Operators should ensure that they have in place practices and procedures to visually and physically check every employee’s original driving licence (not photo-copies) at least once every six months.

An operator is at serious risk if any of their employee’s/drivers are ever caught on the public highway in one of their vehicles without holding a current and adequately valid driving licence.

Checking, copying, recording and storing details from each employee’s driving licence and endorsements status is time-consuming and can be an added administrative concern for most small to medium sized goods vehicle operators, but believe me it's time well spent.

Failure to audit employee driving licences can have an impact on the size of renewal premiums for motor insurance and the absence of evidence of regular checks and adequate verification by or on behalf of employers means that the company is failing in its Duty of Care responsibilities and, in the event of an incident / accident or fatality involving an inadequately licensed employee/driver, could increase the risk of Corporate Manslaughter charges.

If you're an operator never take the risk of employing any driver, even on a casual basis without first verifying that their driving licence is valid and that they hold the required vocational categories for them to legally operate your vehicles. Then check regularly and keep checking.

If you use agency drivers' you should have suitable contracts in place at your end to ensure that the drivers' you are sent are suitably qualified.  Don't ever rely on others to check, however much you may believe their professionalism. It's your responsibility, so you must get the checks carried out.

Question: Do you have a driver policy in place?
If the answer is “NO” or even worse “I don’t know” then you really need to contact  for advice and information on how to put a policy in place, preferably as part of a wider company Health & Safety package. Don’t wait, do it now. If you are based within the East Midlands or East Anglia you can e -mail: info@truckuk.net for detailed information. Please include details of the size of your fleet and the type of trucks and operation you are using. We guarantee that your enquiry is not seen as an obligation to use Truck UK further.