Office of the Traffic Commissioner: Lengthy ban for licence lending

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Lengthy ban for licence lending
Scottish waste firm wasn’t scheduling work, covering maintenance costs or paying drivers for vehicles on its licence
The lending of O licences is an issue which traffic commissioners take very seriously.
First off, it’s a matter of trust.
If a licence is being used by someone else, we don’t know who’s running the vehicles. Which means they’ve not faced the necessary checks to get into the industry.
But it’s also a fair competition issue.
As a compliant operator, you’re meeting all the relevant standards. If someone’s lending a licence, they aren’t working within the same rules. Which means they’ve got an unfair advantage when bidding for work.
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Taking action
That’s why commissioners take strong action against any operator caught lending their licence.
It’s a massive risk to their own business. Take this case, which was dealt with just last month.
The company was disqualified for seven and a half years for lending its licence.
One of the firm’s directors was banned from getting another licence for the same period, while three others were banned for five years. And the transport manager was disqualified indefinitely.
DVSA reported that the company wasn’t scheduling work, covering maintenance costs or paying drivers for four vehicles specified on its licence.
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Other compliance issues
But there were other concerns too. The traffic examiner found:
• the operator didn’t have a company card to download vehicle units or driver cards and had no software to carry out analysis – despite getting digital vehicles in 2006
• a significant number of driving periods with no card inserted when records were analysed by the examiner
Remarkably, one of the firm’s directors said he didn’t think there was any issue with the arrangements between his company and the one without a licence.
The unlicensed company had applied for its own authority in 2018 but withdrew that application following the DVSA visit to the operator who was lending its licence.