tachograph:
But he’s fetching the vehicle which will also be used for commercial purposes and the journey legally has nothing to do with the voluntary work.
Its interesting because if its being taken to the voluntary place not the commercial place then the purpose of the journey is in connection with the voluntary one
I would say that legally you would have to be taking the vehicle to the voluntary organisations place to use it there, I don’t see that taking the vehicle to the voluntary organizations place then later onto a commercial job without any voluntary work being done would change anything.
If I was purely fetching it and then going home I’ve fulfilled the criteria of the voluntary part. In theory 5 mins later a different driver may have used it commercially.
After a bit more checking, legally I still believe the vehicle may not be exempt, it really depends on DVSAs interpretation of the regulation in article 13, technically I would say that the regulations says the vehicle cannot be used for any commercial purpose in order to be exempt, however it may be that the DVSA may interpret it as meaning that the voluntary organisation cannot at any time use it for commercial purposes.
If the voluntary organisation has a permit 19 or permit 22 and you can display the permit disc in the vehicle window when you collect it I would say you will be fine, otherwise if you’re not happy chancing it then my advice would be to contact DVSA and get written confirmation that the vehicle can be used for commercial purposes and still be exempt when being used for a voluntary organisation.
Either way I suspect you would be on thin ice if you’re not actually working for the voluntary organisation when you collect the vehicle so I wouldn’t mention that bit to DVSA if you contact them
Vehicles with between 10 and 17 seats used exclusively for the non-commercial carriage of passengers.
Note:
This would apply to minibuses used by the voluntary
and community sector (e.g. under section 19 and 22 permits)
provided the operation as a whole is carried out without a view to profit,
nor incidentally to an activity which is itself carried out with a view to profit
