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Friday, 27 November 2009Category: Commercial fleet
Published by Rebecca Harty
As a commercial vehicle operator it is your responsibility to ensure your fleet is road worthy. It is an offence to use an unroadworthy vehicle on the road. If you are the operator of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) or public service vehicles (PSVs) daily walk-around checks are an essential part of your roadworthiness inspections.
Under Operator (O) licensing regulations, the user is responsible for ensuring that the vehicle is in a safe and roadworthy condition. The term ‘user’ applies to the person driving the vehicle and the person employing them to do so.
Follow our simple guide to ensure you are carrying out the necessary daily checks:
You must ensure that a responsible person carries out a daily walk-around check before the vehicle is used
The responsible person must carryout at least one check in every 24 hours
Walk-around check should include lights, tyres, wheel fixings, bodywork, trailer couplings, load and ancillary equipment
A written record of the details of any defects should be kept along with details of any work undertaken to rectify the problem. The record should include the vehicle registration or identification mark, date, details of the defects or symptoms and the name of the person who reported the defect
It is good practice to have a process in place for recording ‘Nil’ defects. This enables a record to be kept confirming that the check was carried out and no defects were found
Defects recorded must be promptly reported to a responsible person who has sufficient authority to ensure that appropriate action is taken
You must keep a record of all defect reports for a minimum of 15 months
If your vehicle is towing a trailer, you are responsible for the roadworthiness of the trailer even if it does not belong to you
If you hiring, leasing or borrowing vehicles it is your responsibility to ensure these vehicles are roadworthy. Daily walk-around checks should be carried out on these vehicles
Staff should be trained to carryout the necessary checks and sufficient time allocated to carrying them out
For more information about daily walk-around checks and maintaining commercial vehicle roadworthiness, read VOSA’s guide to maintaining roadworthiness.
