The importance of drivers licence checks

As a fleet manager, it’s your responsibility to ensure your drivers are fit to drive

Creating an effective system to check drivers’ licences will help reduce the risk to your business, keep your employees safer on the roads and reduce the administrative burden.

The administrative tasks can seem endless, but one of your key obligations in fleet management is ensuring that your drivers all have valid licences. This is not only important from a health and safety perspective, but it also mitigates the potential financial risk to your business should the worst happen.

And it’s not just fleet drivers you need to be checking.

You also need to check the licences of anyone who uses a vehicle during work hours, which includes company car, pool car and grey fleet drivers.

Why should I check my employees’ driving licences?

You have a legal obligation under the Health and Safety At Work Act to ensure that your drivers are safe at work, including when they’re out on the roads during working hours.

You also need to ensure that your drivers aren’t putting other road users at avoidable risk.

Developing an effective driving licence check strategy that ensures every licence is checked at least annually, and more often for drivers who pose a greater risk, can help to proactively mitigate the risks of unintentionally having an uninsured or ineligible driver in your fleet.

The driver's licence check provides you with comprehensive information on your drivers, taken from the DVLA data, and can tell you if the driver has passed a test, whether they’re currently banned, if they’re entitled to drive a specific category of vehicle, and whether they have any undisclosed points or endorsements on their licence.

What are the benefits of driver's licence checks?

The benefits of a robust driver’s licence checking policy are numerous, and include:

• Maintaining fleet compliance and safety
• Reducing the logistical pressures of manual checks
• Proactive risk management
• Ensuring your drivers have valid licences
• Mitigating the risk of financial penalties
• Reducing potential fraud and dishonesty

What are the risks of not checking drivers’ licences?

If you don’t regularly check your employees’ driving licences, you could be putting your business at risk of huge fines.

Making sure that anyone who drives for your company is fit to do so is one of the fundamental elements of fleet compliance. Not only is it a requirement under the Health and Safety at Work Act, but it’s also illegal, under the Road Traffic Act 1988, for an employer to allow an employee to driver a company vehicle without a valid licence.

If you’re not checking licences at least once a year, you could be unknowingly exposing your business to the risk of huge financial penalties, should the worst happen and an unfit driver end up in a road traffic incident.

It’s not always going to be possible to catch an employee the minute they pick up points on their licence.

But as long as you have a robust system in place and can prove that you are checking licences regularly, you will have a good legal standing to provide a defence against any criminal proceedings or fines that arise as a result of an ineligible employee being involved in a serious collision.

How Corparison can help

It can be a lengthy process checking licences, especially if you’re still checking them manually.

And with so many other demands on your time as a fleet manager, it’s one of those tasks that – even though you know it’s important – can be pushed to the back of the list when there are more urgent demands.

Corparison can help reduce the administrative burden drivers’ licence checking creates. By knowing that your business is covered, the drivers in your fleet are fit to be behind the wheel and are safer on the roads, you’ll have more time to focus on your day-to-day operations.