HR: What You Should Do
By Planet Vending’s own HR expert, Alison Driver
The perils of the revoked driving license.
A delivery driver who had worked for a company for over four years was found recently to have had his driving licence revoked in 2009. He’d been driving illegally and therefore without insurance ever since.
How can that be?
The company had the latest photocopied version of the driver’s licence, which had 3 points on it for speeding. Company policy states that accumulating 6 points results in disciplinary action…
Here’s what happened
The driver received 3 points for speeding in December 2008 and was asked to forward his licence to the authorities to have the points applied. He ignored the request. Consequently, his licence was revoked, early in 2009. In the meantime, the employee had moved house, so he claimed never to have received the letter informing him that his licence had been revoked. That was his defence when accused of failing to inform his employer that he was no longer ‘street legal’ behind the wheel.
The driver then received another 3 points in January 2011. This time he did send his licence off to the court and they duly added the points. (Interestingly, it seems that the system is unable to retain the revoked licence, or to inform the driver of the revocation, merely adding the points to the licence and returning it to the driver, so watch out!) This version of the licence correlated with the copy that the employer had on the driver’s file…
The potential consequences?
The company has the latest version of the driver’s licence, with the 3 points noted and yet the driver has been driving without a licence since 2009. Without a licence it’s doubtful that the employer’s insurance would be valid. Potentially any claim could be void. So, what’s the worst scenario? Actually, it’s potentially very bad news for the employer:
- Uninsured losses – company vehicle written off, third party vehicle written off.
- Uninsured compensation claim – third party on injury, or death, potentially employee too if he feels that the company have not observed “Duty of Care”
- Downtime from vehicle loss
- Downtime from employee absence / dismissal
- Owner / Director / HR time cost dealing with fallout from Police, CPS, HSE and courts
- Private prosecution of company / Directors from 3rd party / parties
- Negative publicity in press / local community
- Potential Corporate Manslaughter and/or Health & Safety (Offences) charges against company and its owners/Directors
What you should do
Are you checking your drivers’ licences annually? Are you confident that you have accurate, up-to-date information on their driving status? If not, there are organisations that provide on-line, direct service checks with DVLA for driving licence, MOT and Insurance Status. This can be a low cost solution for vending companies. It takes the headache out of annual checks, which as we’ve seen above, may not actually be as accurate as you think. If you find that an employee is no longer able to legally drive there is the potential for considering dismissal from the driving position. Thereby hangs a whole new set of challenges! See the next instalment!
If you would like to find out more about this and other services please contact Alison at Metis HR on 0844 249 1133 or via the company’s website
