OLCIS eNews – June 2025

Tuesday 24 June 2025

Welcome to the June edition of Logistics UK’s Operator Licensing Compliance Information Service (OLCIS) enews update. This document is a monthly round-up of transport news items sent out as part of your OLCIS subscription. Its objective is to keep you up to date with news affecting your commercial vehicle operation. To view previous editions and access your other subscription benefits, visit the dedicated OLCIS hub.

We welcome any comments and suggestions for new topics you would like to see included within OLCIS enews. Contact Customer Services with any feedback.

News round-up

DVSA payments for roadside fines

From 28 May 2025, due to the DVSA changing the company they use for payments for roadside fines, the new system will now allow for the following payments to be charged using Apple pay and Google pay.

• Fixed penalties for vehicle defects and other offences such as breaking the rules around drivers’ hours.
• Immobilisation fees.
• Court deposits.

DVSA roadside prohibition notifications

From 18 June 2025, you will receive your prohibitions by email rather than by post, so you will need to ensure the email address you have recorded on your Operator Licence is correct.

The email will include all the information usually included in the letter; this is to support in making the process quicker, efficient and more environmentally friendly.

You will still be given a physical prohibition at the roadside and receive clearance notices by post.

If you do not have an email address recorded on your operator licence you will continue to receive letters as usual.

Tachograph seal clarification at annual test

To ensure that rules are applied consistently during a heavy vehicle annual test, DVSA has provided clarification on tachograph seals when testing HGVs and PSVs.

Tachograph seals (1C) have a `snap off` section which must be completely snapped off by the tachograph centre carrying out the tacho calibration/repair.

If this section has not been completely snapped off, the tachograph is deemed not to be sealed in accordance with the regulations.

Therefore, it will be a failure at MOT (annual test). The vehicle must attend an authorised tachograph centre to be re-calibrated before presenting it for a retest. The requirement for this will appear of the failure certificate.

Once presented for retest, assessors will check for a new calibration as well as the correct installation of the 1C tacho seal. If a new calibration has not been completed, then the vehicle will fail the retest.

Where any 1C tacho seal that has not been completely snapped off, DVSA will contact the tacho centre that fitted the seal and give guidance on the requirements.

Leaflet on the types of vehicles permitted to be driven with a car or lorry licence

DVLA has updated a leaflet with information on goods vehicles that can be driven with a full car licence, minimum ages and descriptions of vehicles categories. The information leaflet is available here.

Top questions this month at the Member Advice Centre     

Q – Are we allowed to keep our tachograph, working time and vehicle maintenance records at a location other than the operating centre?

A – Yes. There is no place specified in the regulations or operator’s licence conditions for these records to be kept. However, you must be able to produce such records for any enforcement officer within a reasonable amount of time. Tachograph charts must be retained for at least 12 months, working time records for two years (following the period in question) and vehicle maintenance records for at least 15 months.

Q – A vehicle maintenance contractor, who daily – delivers vehicles passenger and goods, to/from various sites to their maintenance deport/garage, however, they have expressed that the employee can drive a Category D vehicle on their HGV licence as long as there are no passengers on board at the time of driving, is this correct?

A – There has previously been a concession for holders of a category C licence to be able to drive a category D (passenger carrying) vehicle, provided the entitlement had been held for at least two years and that the vehicle was either defective or damaged and being driven to a place of repair or on a road test following a repair or inspection provided no passengers were carried that were unconnected with such work. The Third EU Driving Licence Directive removed this concession completely.

Q – We run a small number of panel vans which are not included on our operator licence. Should they also be inspected every six weeks like our 7.5t?

A – You are obliged to maintain any vehicle operating on the public roads in a roadworthy condition. This can only be achieved by having a regular inspection and servicing regime in place together with a system for drivers to report any defects.

Compliance news: around the courts

Background

An operator has a restricted operator’s licence, which authorises 12 vehicles and no trailers. As with all operator licences, every five years the licence must be renewed. As part of this process, the Traffic Commissioners undertake a review of the operating centre and consider whether it remains suitable. In this case, it was decided by the Traffic Commissioner that a review of the operator’s licence should take place after representations were made that the operating centre was unsuitable due to the noise generated by the operator’s vehicles. The representations were deemed to be justified, however, after discussions no compromise could be reached and a public inquiry was called as a result.

Prior to the hearing, the Traffic Commissioner asked the DVSA to undertake an analysis of the data contained in the vehicle units to comply information as to the times the vehicles first moved each day. Traffic Examiners used a three-month reference period.

The Traffic Commissioner visited the site late in the evening to understand the issues presented to them.

The public inquiry commenced, neither of the representors appeared, with no explanation as to why.

Evidence

All findings of fact had been completed by the Traffic Commissioner. From their site visit it was clear that there were no other operators in the vicinity to this operating centre, and the representors both lived very close to the operating centre and classed as being within the vicinity of it which includes sight, sound and smell.

The evidence of the DVSA was not challenged by the operator and details of the vehicle movements and weight were discussed.

The Traffic Commissioner continued that from their site visit, the location of the operating centre, lack of any other operator in the vicinity, the land use around the operating centre and from the local road network for the traffic on the roads that access the operating centre and in the immediate vicinity of the operating centre between 04:00 and 05:30, excluding the operator’s vehicles, would be extremely light. The Traffic Commissioner was satisfied that the ambient background noise from the operation and the operator’s vehicles would still be quiet for the majority of the time.

The Traffic Examiner evidence proved that the vehicles were, for the majority of time, first driven at or before 05:29 and as early as 04:10.

The Traffic Commissioner stated that a walk around check would need to be completed first and when a vehicle is first driven there needs to be a degree of revving of the engine to allow the vehicle to pull away from its stationary position, especially when the vehicle is laden as more effort is required to move it compared to an unladen vehicle, and the operator told the Traffic Commissioner that the vehicles would leave the operating centre laden.

The Traffic Commissioner decided both representors’ claims were valid and that it is not acceptable to regularly wake someone from their sleep before 05:30 and it would not be reasonably practical to expect the representors to change their sleeping patterns. Over time the operator had taken on more work that was further and further away from their operating centre which resulted in the operator’s vehicles having to leave earlier to make the return trip that same day.

The Traffic Commissioner said that there comes a time when the business wants of the operator reach a point where they pose an unreasonable environmental interference upon the owners or occupiers of land in the vicinity of its operating centre.

The Traffic Commissioner, because of careful consideration to the case, stated the only way they could determine that the operating centre is suitable on environmental grounds and consequently allow the operator licence to be renewed would be to add a condition on the operator’s licence.

The operator was warned that any breach of a condition on an operator’s licence is an offence that can be prosecuted in the criminal courts. It is also an event that directly goes to the issue of an operator’s fitness to hold an operator’s licence.

Summing up

After careful consideration of the facts, the Traffic Commissioner imposed a condition against the licence, and that the licence could be renewed, subject to no authorised vehicles being started or moved within the operating centre before 05:30 and after 22:00, unless in the event of an emergency.