Having spoken to IOSH this afternoon, as I suspected, if there was an accident the prosecutor would potentially look to see what steps we had taken to prove the person was telling the truth about their license, maintaining their vehicle and had the appropriate insurance.

YOU cannot check anothers vehicle. YOU can only check you own!

"I am entitled to the insurance information about the vehicle detailed above for one or more of the following reasons: It is either registered/ owned/ insured by me or my employer; I am permitted to drive it; I am an Insurance Broker or agent and acting on behalf of my client.

I understand it is an offence to wrongfully obtain information of this nature without any of the above reasonable causes. If I fail to provide true reasons for acquiring this information I may be committing an offence of unlawfully obtaining data contrary to section 55 of the Data protection Act 1998. I declare that the information provided will not be used for any purposes unrelated to this enquiry"

Or go to: http://www.askmid.com/askmidenquiry.aspx

"Access to MID via this facility is provided to enable individuals to conduct ad-hoc searches in the event of an accident. It is not designed for continued use by individual parties. If you do require access to this information on a more regular basis, we recommend that you subscribe to an askMID account, else you may find your access denied. Please submit your request for an account via the askMID homepage.

If there has been a motor accident and you need to check the other vehicle is insured, for a nominal charge, search the Motor Insurance Database (MID) to help determine if the other vehicle is insured.

The date of the accident and the registration details of the other vehicle are required to search on askMID. If the registration is found on the MID, you will receive on screen the insurance details: policy number, name of insurer and the claims contact details to help you progress a claim.

We need some information so we can search the MID and provide you with the details that you have requested. This enquiry will be charged at £4.00. Please check the registration numbers entered and incident date are correct.

Please ensure you enter a valid email address as this will be used to send a payment confirmation email, and may be used to send the result of your MID search in rare circumstances where there is a delay and it cannot be displayed immediately on the screen."

I have taken a look at askMID and have tried it inputting my own details in, if we were to do this for the company then we would subscribe however, personally, I don't think askMID will give me the information I need.

I'm more interested in obtaining an answer to my original question i.e. would be sufficient for employees to sign a declaration confirming that they have a valid driving license and will maintain their vehicle etc.

I disagree. Just because something can be done, it does not mean it is a reasonable measure to adopt for all levels of risk. So just because you can check driving licences, it does not mean it is automatically reasonable to assume that all drivers who ever drive as part of their work have their licences checked regularly or routinely.

After all, you could have the company check licences before each and every single journey. Does the fact that this is possible mean it must automatically be treated as a proportionate risk mitigation measure? I say no.

The response back in the thread "if there was an accident the prosecutor would potentially look to see what steps we had taken" is pretty meaningless. If there's an accident a prosecutor will, of course, look at everything available to them. It is almost certain that there will be more that could have been done. The court will decide whether what was done was reasonably practicable (where that standard exists). In the cases of driving licenses, whether it was reasonably practicable for the company to do independent checks will be a decision for the court - the fact that it is possible will not automatically make it reasonable.

To confuse the issue even further you cannot check a EU citizens licence. They have the right to drive on their EU licence for 3 years before swapping it for a UK licence. If they have committed any offences in the UK a record will be held of UK offences only. But technically they could have been banned in several other EU countries for drink driving, dangerous driving etc. not surrendered their licence and be driving a van or minicab near you in this country.

What you can check is what the licence from a EU country should look like in a given year it was issued to see if it is a fraudulent licence:
http://ec.europa.eu/tran...dex_en.htm?date=1/1/2014

So technically a EU licence is not valid in the UK after 3 years. If employing EU drivers check their length of residency as well.

I believe Ireland may be easier to check licences. if it is a commercial licence I also believe that they must update it sooner than 3 years.

"I disagree. Just because something can be done, it does not mean it is a reasonable measure to adopt for all levels of risk. So just because you can check driving licences, it does not mean it is automatically reasonable to assume that all drivers who ever drive as part of their work have their licences checked regularly or routinely"

The existence of online checking makes relying on a persons self-declaration risky.
If points are put on a licence it will be online and viewable within a few days.
People lie. Get over it.
I don't really see you as having an out if you rely on false information when true information is available...

Haha....
I like your sense of humour.
Like most small companies, it could not give a rats rear end whether the driver even has a licence!
Let's see you check a foreign licence for validity...and about those foreign "DBS" checks..................