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Posted By Sarah munch
Can anyone throw some light on here?
With a fairly large fleet of company cars and owned cars (4500) is there any legisaltion to suggest that all indivduals' licences must be checked periodically and according to risk? MOT and insurance documents are also a consideration in this kind of process but the cost is considerable. I am aware employers are responsible for owned car drivers driving on company business as much as fleet car drivers but is there any advice or instruction that all drivers must be checked in all these respects?
Is a robust random audit process enough perhaps to keep the courts happy?
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Posted By Stupendous Man
Sarah,
This topic has been covered a few times before - you may wish to do a search that will bring up a selection of comments.
The other point that I would make is that you should not be asking whether you are keeping the courts happy or not. You need to make sure that you, and your company are happy with the arrangements that are in place.
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Posted By Sarah munch
Sarah
Of course the company matters but ultimately the law is there to be obeyed and respected I merely wanted to know if there was any specific legislation available to employers
Thanks anyway
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Posted By alex mccreadie
Sarah
I have just joined a large company with problems like you have in company cars and owner driven cars.
Your Insurance company will assist you in their requirements.
One part of the group have just had a vehicle involved in a fatal RTA Manager had not checked the Driving Licence of the person involved. They have no licence!!! guess who as well as the Driver is in the hot seat.
Not a popular person but I have now insisted HR hold a licence check every 2-3 months to try to combat this happening again.
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Posted By J Knight
Hi Sarah,
In brief; there is no specific legislation. s40 of the Road Traffic Act 1991 applies to people causing or permitting the use of a defective vehicle; there is no such clause for a defective driver. However, with the increasing involvement of HSE in RTC fatalities where one of the people involved is at work, you should take an approach similar to the one you would use in assessing any other work hazard; an assessment under Reg 3 would almost certainly want to look at operator (in this case driver) competence,
John
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Posted By Richard Altoft
Why not check 10% every month or get managers to check everyone say once a year but back this up by ensureing a rigid policy of dismissing anyone who drives without a valid licence or who accumulates enough points to lose licence without declaring they can no longer drive.
An alternative is to have a "sign to confirm" box on expenses claims and then dismiss anyone who signs this as having licence, MOT, insurance etc but hasn't on the grounds of fraud.Also remember foriegn drivers licences are only accptable in some cases and then only for a year.
Reg 13 of MHSW requires employers to check capability before allocating a task, having no licence suggest capability is suspect.
R
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Posted By Merv Newman
Odd thoughts. I used to work for "the safest company in the world" (I believe they were)
Safety manager of their stevenage office won "safe driver of the year" a few years back. But later died in a car crash.
Same year my niece's boyfriend ran the fleet which won "safest fleet of the year" (an insurance company) he is now "ex" but still alive, I think.
I had a company car (peugeot 406) for a number of years and nobody asked to see my driving licence. But I did get advanced training.
An american company I worked for not only required annual presentation of clean licence but also to be informed of any "vehicle related" criminal incident. (the unions soon got shot of that requirement)
As I said, odd thoughts
Merv (waiting for Countdown to start)
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Posted By Is Kismet
I put up a thread a few weeks ago on a similar vein.
By coincidence, just recently and via a colleague, there has been a rather disturbing move.
A car driver (recently sacked from a company) complained to the local EHO about the driver hours she was expected to work. After some discussion between the LA/HSE (this is normally an EHO enforced workplace) an EHO has inspected the employer premises, and separately the HSE have asked for the driver 'working hours' risk assessment.
Note that there has not been an accident, this is solely the result of an employee complaint.
Should be interesting!
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Posted By J Knight
Is, could you keep us informed about this one? We are trying to launch a MORR Policy and Procedures, and I would love to know just where enforcers might want us to draw lines,
John
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Posted By Is Kismet
Yes. The more I think about it the more worrying ....
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Posted By Ian P
Some motoring organisations recommend checks every 3 months but I think the best system I have heard of is to weight the period between checks with the amount of points on the license. Still a lot of paperwork and nothing is foolproof.
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Posted By Merv Newman
Right on. Nothing is foolproof. Still referring to my employment with the "safest company in the world", company car drivers (not me at the time) were rewarded (AA subscriptions) for safe-driving-miles. The top guy was a salesman working from our site. When, eventually, his company car came up for sale I bought it (2 liter Austin Princess)
First time I took it in for a service the mechanic said "I see you've had a few panels resprayed then"
nothing is foolproof
Same company, same fleet (nothing to do with safety) : One salesman left the company and his car was used as a "pool car" for about six months. When they eventually sold it they found that the engine number no longer matched the body number.
Merv
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Posted By Eddie Farmer I have just recently moved to a new company and from my experience in licence checking, insurance and mot checks, I wish I knew about this company then. It would have saved us from prosecution and so much time. The last place a director was fined a huge amount of money for having a disqualified driver who had a seriuos accident, even though we check every 3 mths. His licence was a duplicate. The outcome of the driver was a 5yr ban. The company not only had a huge fine, but the insurance would not pay out. I wont tell you the amount of the fine but the write off and damage was in excess of £80,000. They got a company in called Drivercheck. They have a link to the DVLA for checking licences and highlighting on a regular basis all the licence details. The system is excellent, I wish I came across it back then. They are low key, so you can find them on www.drivercheck.co.uk
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Posted By David
I have a great interest in Health and Safety issues primarily specialising in the validity of Driving Licences. I would like to be honest and upfront to the forum members and declare that I would like to introduce our business, Advanced Checking Services Ltd. We have a contract with the DVLA and can provide you with a Driving Licence Checking Service which checks licence details direct with the DVLA database. The service is web based and takes away the time consuming task of manually checking licences. As more and more drivers are found to have one or more 'duplicate' licences, it also removes the risk of copying paper licences . A clean one for you, the employer and their dirty one with the points on it. This is a growing problem in the UK and we are working with companies in many areas from logistics to telecommunications to remove the risk posed to them by dishonest drivers. If you have any questions please feel free to call us with no obligation. We can then send you more info and visit you as appropriate. My name is David Blockley and I can be contacted on 0870 163 3884.
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