DVSA staff issued with bodycams to beat aggression
Rise in assaults on enforcement staff prompts DVSA to issue body worn cameras
News - Chris Tindall
September 8, 2020
Restricted licence holders should review their operations and ensure they are complying with the rules, following a spate of PIs in which traffic commissioners took firms to task.
A restricted licence only allows you to carry your own goods on your own account, for your own purposes.
You do not have to satisfy the requirement of professional competence to obtain a restricted licence and the rates of financial standing are less.
Scott Bell, solicitor at Backhouse Jones, said he thought TCs were increasingly focusing their attention on this type of licence holder.
He said: “The big question is that the transport element must be no more than ancillary to the overall operation of your business.
“And this is where we are finding people getting caught out.
“I have had a number of incidences during lockdown of restricted HGV operators being asked this question by TCs.
“It’s predominantly the case where you are in waste and you are not doing anything with that waste.”
Bell explained: “If you are picking up the waste from point ‘A’ and taking it to point ‘B’ for disposal, you may have some problems operating under a restricted licence, because it looks like hire and reward work.”
Bell advised concerned operators to review their position: “If you are a skip wagon business, for example, it might be the case that to fall within the exemption you have to have a waste processing licence; you bring the skip back to your operating centre or waste transfer centre and sort the waste into different skips.”
