Why check employees’ driving licences?
- All employers have a duty of care to ensure any employee that is required to drive on behalf of the company is correctly licensed and entitled to drive.
- The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 – organisations that require employees to drive as part of their work must monitor their employees’ entitlement to drive and verify driving licences.
- Section 87 (2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 – makes it an offence for a person to cause or permit another person to drive a motor vehicle of any class on a road if that other person is not the holder of a licence authorising him to drive a motor vehicle of that class.
- The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Guidelines on Driving at Work strongly recommend that drivers’ licences are checked when they first drive on behalf of the company and periodically thereafter.
- Employees driving without a valid licence may invalidate company insurance.
Licence fraud and honest mistakes are a fact of life. Therefore it is vital that DVLA issued licences are verified with the DVLA.