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Driver Licence Checking Contact UsDriver Licence Checking is essential in helping you or your company meet 'duty of care' obligations under HSE (Health and Safety Executive) regulations.
Being able to verify that drivers hold valid and current licences for the vehicles they are driving is essential for company policy, insurance and to protect directors from prosecution, due to criminal acts carried out by employees on company property, (driving without licence, insurance whilst banned etc)
No longer is it enough to just look at licences or take a photocopy, as there are a number of easy ways to fake or hide the information displayed on the actual paper part of a licence that is presented by an employee.
Data generated by driver licence checking can also be used to identify 'higher risk' drivers and drivers near to disqualification, This can then allow for appropriate assessment or training to be carried out.
Driver Licence Checking will help you:
Contact Jeremy Palmer to find out more about our Driver Licence Checking Service
0121 308 1233 or email info@driven-ltd.co.uk
Director blamed for unlicenced employee!Recently one of our customers told us of an employee who carried on driving even though he had been banned. They were carrying out driver licence checks every 12 months by asking to see and photocopy the employee’s driving licence.
Which is why they didn’t know he had been banned sooner, a licence check every 12 months is not enough to be fully upto date. The employee continued to drive to and from work through fear of losing his job. Until he had an accident, which was on company property. The company director was the one prosecuted for the employee not being licensed, and being allowed to drive on company property.
You can see from this one example how easy it is to fall foul of the law, as unfair as it may seem, but that is how easy it is to face a legal battle, which would be difficult and costly to win!
Driving Licence ChecksThe Department for Transport (DfT) have stated that there are roughly 473,000 unlicenced drivers on the roads in the UK. 17,200 of these drivers have been banned under the totting up of points, but they have continued to drive without a licence, often due to pressures of work or the risk of losing their driving related job.
The Driven Ltd driver licence checking service will help your company to ensure compliance with section 87 (2) of the Road Traffic Act and check an individual’s entitlement to drive with the Driver Vehicle & Licensing Agency.
All we require is a signed and completed Data Protection Mandate from each driver to be checked, this is then valid for 3 years from the date of signature. Once signed and completed, Driven Ltd can undertake up to four licence checks per year over the three year life of the mandate, without any further recourse to the driver if they are still in a companies employment.
All this information is then available to each of our clients using a state of the art web based system. This allows employers to quickly and easily keep up to date with each of its drivers with easy, secure access to driver information at any time 24 hrs.
Is your company breaking the law by not adequatly checking driving licences?Firms that fail to carry out adequate driver licence checking on their company drivers are not only putting road users at risk, but could also be breaking the law.
The warning, from Norwich Union Risk Services fleet specialist Steve Palmer, came after vehicle leasing company ALD Automotive revealed that a recent driver licence checking exercise had found that one in 70 were ineligible to drive.
The investigation, conducted for ALD by the Licence Bureau with the help of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), found that seven drivers from five different firms had been using a company vehicle without a valid licence. Malcolm Maycock, of the Licence Bureau, said: "When we alerted the companies they were understandably and rightly shocked. As far as they were concerned in every case the employees were OK to drive."
He went on to warn that many companies paid little attention to checking the validity of the driving licences of staff.
Photocard Driving Licence 10 Year UpdateWhen does yours run out?All UK photocard driving licences need to be updated every 10 years.
The photo on the licence is only valid for 10 years, therefore the driving licence and photo needs to be updated accordingly. Drivers will not need to retake a driving test but will of course need to submit a new photo of how they currently look.
This started to happen in July 2008, the DVLA started to issue reminders in May 2008. The holder must renew their licence before their current photo expires. Renewal is necessary to avoid a £1000 fine. The licence expiry date can be found in the section marked 4b on the front of the photocard.
The paper part of the licence however does not contain an expiry until the holders 70th Birthday.
Businesses will need to review licence holders who drive for work as employees with an out of date licence could affect vehicle insurance and therefore the entitlement to drive legally. All businesses that have employees driving for work should have a record of all drivers’ licences and expiry dates, which should be updated annually.
It now appears that there will be a charge of £17.50 for the update, this will affect some 300,000 motorists between July 2008 and April 2009. Photocard licences replaced the traditional paper licences, which do not have to be renewed until the holders 70th birthday.
However a DVLA spokesperson has said that a motorist's entitlement to drive will not be affected by failure to update the photo on the licence. But it will invalidate a drivers insurance, as their licence will be deemed to not be current and therefore not legally entitle them to drive.
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Driver Licence Checking, the benefits?Driver Licence Checking helps you or your company meet 'duty of care' obligations under HSE (Health and Safety Executive) regulations by checking that company drivers hold valid current (not expired) driving licences for the vehicles they drive. Data generated by licence checks can be used to identify expiry dates of photo licences aswell as to help identify 'at-risk' drivers and manage the safety of a fleet of vehicles overall.
All of our driver licence checks are carried out directly with the DVLA to confirm the latest upto date information that they hold about drivers.
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