Do You Check Employee Driving Licences?

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This is a bit of a daunting subject but in essence we have the following rules.
• If you drive a company car then all licences are checked on an annual basis at the appraisal time.
• If you are asked to drive a company car (we have free access to all company cars during the day) then we take a copy of your licence.
• Hire cars are the same all licences are checked
• We have a pool car and this is run by my PA she checks all licences before use and signs the keys over to people they have to complete a check sheet before driving the vehicle.
• If you are an employee and come onto our property with a car that does not hold a ‘valid’ road tax disc then you are asked by security to remove it, we will not allow cars on site as no tax means invalid insurance as well.

Sorry I pressed the wrong button. Here are answers to some of the questions. Please forgive me if they have answered before.

Derek - DVLA or other organisations will check licences PROVIDED they have written permission from the driver.

Anonymous - I suggest you make all drivers do basic checks before driving.

Dorian - Endorsements are only shown on the paper counterpart so anyone checking licences should see this part too. Do not accept a photocopy

Robert - I agree wholeheartedly with your comments regarding Licences and handbooks

Samantha - Best practice although if one of your employees were to have a serious accident an investigatin would look into 3 main areas. The driver - the vehicle - The journey. If a driver was found to be unlicenced from a ban or maybe a medical condition and has not reported it then you may have a problem if your polices and work practices were not geared up to flag this up. I know it is an administritive nightmare but nohing in comparison to a Police or HSE inspection.

I have been watching this thread with great interest. It is vital that anyone who drives on company business using their own car ensures it is "Fit for Purpose". It is the employers responsibility to ensure that the necessary checks are in place. Licence, insurance etc.

Whilst on the subject of checking documentation. Can I ask ... does a company have to check staff MOT, Driving Licence and insurance on a regular basis? I assumed that we had to because the staff are claiming mileage expenses and also may be taking other staff members to meetings etc.

Forgot to mention the Road Traffic Act: 87(2)

87 Drivers of motor vehicles to have driving licences

(1) It is an offence for a person to drive on a road a motor vehicle of any class if he is not the holder of a licence authorising him to drive a motor vehicle of that class.

(2) It is an offence for a person to cause or permit another person to drive on a road a motor vehicle of any class if that other person is not the holder of a licence authorising him to drive a motor vehicle of that class.

There are a number of companies in the marketplace (Intelligent Data Systems, for one) who operate electronic interfaces with the DVLA and will manage this process for you. Each driver is asked to sign a mandate giving the DVLA their permission to disclose their record, and the results are collated and reported by the company. The mandate lasts for three years, and you can do as many or as few checks as you want in that period. A good supplier will also take care of the donkey work associated with the collection of mandates for you, so you can just sit back and bask in the glory...

You might also want to talk to your fleet provider (if you have one) for their guidance.

From looking at many of the comments on this page, I can see that checking driving licences is a mjor issue. I have noticed that many of you, however, do carry this out. I work for an organisation that only checks licences when the employe joins the organisation, there are currently no further checks. We have looked into annual checking but as we have over 3000 members of staff on the road all over England, this would prove to be an almost impossible task.

Many employees utilise their own car and we have pool cars and utilise hire cars. We have a good relationship with our hire car company so this is not a mjor issue but the use of their own car is.

Do we have to check licences by law or is it just best practise, and how have others implemented this within their organisations? Help on this would be really appreciated as this is an issue that has been around in my organisation for a long time!

Essex County Council checks licences annually and has a 6 monthly updated list of 'authorised' drivers for each department.

This lists those people who have passed an ECC driving familiarisation test with BSM and the vehicles (Car, Car derived van, Van, Minibus) for which they have passed on. Naturally passing at car level means cars or car derived vans can only be driven whereas Minibus covers all those before it.

Mobile Libraries now require an HGV licence as our vehicles are HGV.

The point of the annual check is to make sure that there are no points or convictions on the licence which would affect the driver's authorisation.

The point of the six month list check is to ensure that people aren't left on that list if their job no longer requires them to drive vehicles or in case they have left the organisation.

I have recently commenced a formal check of driving licenses and for insurance/MOT status for employees using their own vehicles on business use. I feel much better doing this, there is now a system that ensures annually that each driver in my department has the necessary licence and insurance. The initial check highlighted one individual who occasionally uses his own vehicle mistakenley had no cover for business use. This has now been resolved as a result of the check.

As both an H&S and ISO 9001:2000 consultant I work into the companies procedures an annual check of the licence with the checker taking a photocopy as proof of the check and held in the personal file, a company umbrella in the event of an incident. I also have a duty to report any accident, police stop or court action inserted into the company staff handbook, failure is a dismissable offence as it is classed as H&S ommission.

My recovery garage clients all work to PAS 43 which requires that checks are at least annual. PAS 43 forms part of ISO 9001 for my clients.

AA and RAC insist recovery garages conform to PAS 43.

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Dorian,

In answer to your original question, the DVLA website says that if you wish to have expired endorsements removed from your licence you must send both the card and paper part in to the DVLA, implying that the physical card does actually carry a record of your endorsements.

Further information from the DVLA on penalties and disqualifications can be found on their website at www.dvla.gov.uk/drivers/endorsem.htm.

Regarding checking a driver's previous history, there is a system currently in place for you to do this. The following is taken from the management guide of the Workplace Law Publishing 'Driving at Work Policy and Management Guide, version 1.1':

"The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) can be contacted to verify the details given by a driver regarding any endorsements or driving history. The driver needs to contact the DVLA and grant permission for a named individual to given their licence history information. The named individual should then contact the DVLA on 01792 782341, asking for the Driving Licence Section. They will be asked to identify themselves and provide the driver?s full name, address, sex and date of birth. Once the DVLA have verified that permission has been granted to release the information the details will be provided. Presently the DVLA only operate this as a verbal process."

You can download a sample and contents list for the Driving at Work Policy and Management Guide, version 1.1 here: www.workplacelaw.net/my/download.php?download_id=217

Hope that helps!

Thanks for some response although it has not answered my original question and this still remains unanswered.

In addition, if the authorities are trying to suggest that we, the employers are liable for any wrongful acts by the employee, this is surely not going to be mitigated by asking the employees for details. The dishonest employee in question who may have lost his licence may just lie when asked about it. What are we supposed to do then ?

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I would suggest you place the onus on them to report any changes in circumstances, likewise with any spouses etc.

We ask that the paper version of the new licence is presented when updates are being done which are copied and kept on file.

By asking for updates only when things change the amount of admin should (hopefully) be reduced

Surely employees have a duty towards their employer to notify them if their circumstances change; i.e., if they are banned from driving. My company carries out an annual check just in case an employee is forgetful!

In answer to Derek's original question, the sheer amount of resources required to administer company driving checks/procedures is the reason why so many firms now seem to be turning to an outsourced vehicle management company.

With regard to the question on access to the DVLA database, I'm pretty sure there is a form you can request from the DVLA which summarises a driver's history - we will look into this for you. This may only be an activity you can do once - when a new driver joins, say. It may also not be the kind of direct access into the DVLA database Derek is looking for. But it is a useful starting point.

Perhaps someone could help with a question:

I have not yet obtained the new licence but I believe it takes the format of a credit card complete with a photogragh. I did not think that any endosements are shown on these new licences so how is the visual check of the licence going to help ? Is the licence physically removed from the owner if a ban is in force ?

Concerning a further matter:

We seem to have the knack of looking at every topic in isolation.

There has been much discussion about national identity cards.Could the new licence not be used as the identity card ? That would furnish a considerable number of the population with a readuy made identity card.

Who in their right mind would object to carrying this card if it was going to help with illegal immigrants and the like ?

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Ref Patrick Kelly, i am a vehicle maintainence manager for a small recovery firm and as part of the duties of all drivers to do a daily check on vehicles. If they do not then they are held responsible if a defect is found if stopped by the law, it is out of duty of care that they should do the checks, as A = it would show up any defects and B = help maintain the vehicle on the road as we all know it is costly to repair and hire out if a vehicle is off the road through neglect.

Could someone tell me please we are a small hospital and have 10 ambulances of different sizes. We make our full time drivers do daily check lists on the vehicles. As we all know anyone driving a vehicle is responseable for that vehicles condition how ever we do not make our volunteers or other staff members do a daily check. Should we be asking them to do one as well. A = by law B= by duty of care.

Thankyou

Patrick Kelly

Check licences from "time to time" thereafter? check licences "periodically"? Bit vague..... Bench mark good practice suggests annual checking however this makes another full time admin job when dealing with a large company workforce along with the other driving partners and dependants.

On top of which one then adds the hire car users, the pool car users and those folk who use their own cars on company business. When dealing with this mass of administration and recording on an annual basis it is a task which can only really be as good as the moment one looked at the docs as the driver could be banned a week later. It would be useful if the DVLA mirrored the USA and allowed access to their database for reliable one source checking of docs.(nice little earner for them as well to cut their costs). Any other solutions, legal wordings or getarounds appreciated...

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