According to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act of 2005, vehicles are considered places of work and employers have a duty to ensure, as far as possible, a safe place of work for everyone involved. Furthermore, employers should, as far as possible, ensure work-related journeys are safe, all members of staff are fit to work and in a suitable condition to drive safely and that vehicles, too, are in a safe condition to drive. The same legislation states that employers need to train employees to protect their safety, health and welfare.
Part of optimising the safety of a job, therefore, involves effective communication with drivers as well as checking whether they are in a fit state to carry out the job safely. This involves checking their driving licence as well as their health, bearing in mind this is not only to safeguard drivers and colleagues, but also other road users.
But how do companies carry out driving licence checks and confirm that they are legally compliant?
With the replacement of the paper counterpart, it has become more complicated for companies to make proper driving licence checks. The DVLA has recently set up a dedicated website to resolve the matter, as fleet managers and businesses were previously using a DVLA website designed specifically to check one´s own personal driving licence and not for the purposes of third part access.
Last summer, therefore, the new DVLA website was launched and drivers were contacted in order to gain their consent to make their driving licence details available to specific third party users (typically employers); but the procedure has been seen by some as too complicated—the access code for employers has a limited duration and it cannot be used for checking foreign driving licences, which requires a pay-for call service.
According to some sources, this new system is more cumbersome for employers and adds time to the licence checking process, especially in the case of big fleets. It seems that currently there is no online alternative for checking driver details in bulk.
Another awkward health and safety aspect to consider is that a minority of drivers are not medically fit enough to carry out their duties, yet do not readily admit this either to themselves or their employer. Employers need to adjust their vetting processes to identify unfit drivers and protect the interests of everyone. Disclosure of medical conditions during medical renewal for licences is in fact voluntary—however, knowing the medical status of a driver should determine which work is made available to them and also to determine the risks.
