Fleet Risk Consultants

But are you sure you have a valid driving licence?

The photocard driving licence was born on the 1^st July 1998 in The Driving Licences (Community Driving Licence) Regulations 1998.  Buried in these regulations in Section 8 is an amendment to The Road Traffic Act 1988 (c52) Section 99 that puts a 10 year life span on the photocard driving licence.  This is to bring into line with the passport requirements to maintain a recent photograph of the bearer. 

If your employees have these photocard driving licences and they are over ten years old and therefore invalid, you are allowing you employees to drive otherwise in accordance with a driving licence.  This is an offence for which the senior management could be prosecuted.

To prevent your business falling foul of the law driving licences should be checked every six months, and any organisation checking licences over a period any longer than six months will find themselves, at some point, in serious trouble with either the HSE or the Police or both.  At the same time it is good practice to check the eyesight of your staff.  If you do this for all staff regardless of whether they drive or not you would have a much better case to present in court, should the need arise.

When you check the licences you should be on the look out for those that state replacement as there are drivers who apply for a replacement licence whilst the original has no points on it.  They then produce the original to the courts and the ‘clean’ replacement to their employer.  You should also be on the lookout for ten year old photocard licences.  The expiry date is on the front of the photocard and is designated 4b.

The best way to ensure that your employees’ licences are valid is to get a mandate signed to allow you to go direct to DVLA to check the licence of your drivers.  You should then check 10% of your employees with DVLA to ensure that your system is working.