In our yard we have a number of LGV’s that require movement when loading in the evenings and occasionally during the day to provide access for other site traffic. The site has gates, but they are left open most of the working day meaning the potential for public access.
My question is - can a person legally drive a vehicle for which he/she does not hold the correct category licence within the confines of the yard?
Private land yes
From the point of view of the road traffic act, yes, you don’t need a licence to drive anything on private land.
However, in the event of an accident or injury, an untrained person driving a truck might give rise to
a) A very large claim in which an insurance company would have very little interest and
b) the unwanted attention of the H&S executive.
Regards,
Nick.
Many thanks for the replies. So short of full licence training for operatives on site, would a yard shunter course be a viable alternative?
In the past I have been to a large site and trained 3 warehouse ops to shunt artics
Those ops got certificates of competency which then satisfied the company and the insurers
ROG:
In the past I have been to a large site and trained 3 warehouse ops to shunt articsThose ops got certificates of competency which then satisfied the company and the insurers
That might have been good enough a while ago ROG, but these days, the insurers are starting to only want instructors actually qualified to teach shunting. That’s especially true if ‘dock-spotter’ type shunters, such as Terbergs are to be used cos the insurers often count them as a different bit of kit.
dieseldave:
ROG:
In the past I have been to a large site and trained 3 warehouse ops to shunt articsThose ops got certificates of competency which then satisfied the company and the insurers
That might have been good enough a while ago ROG, but these days, the insurers are starting to only want instructors actually qualified to teach shunting. That’s especially true if ‘dock-spotter’ type shunters, such as Terbergs are to be used cos the insurers often count them as a different bit of kit.
I should have said this was shunting with artic units …
dieseldave:
ROG:
In the past I have been to a large site and trained 3 warehouse ops to shunt articsThose ops got certificates of competency which then satisfied the company and the insurers
That might have been good enough a while ago ROG, but these days, the insurers are starting to only want instructors actually qualified to teach shunting. That’s especially true if ‘dock-spotter’ type shunters, such as Terbergs are to be used cos the insurers often count them as a different bit of kit.
Hargreaves / System Training offer a shunting course, although I don’t know what merit it holds for insurers or companies.
I provide shunting courses. The student gets a certificate and are trained to driving test standards for everything related to shunting.
For Health & Safety at Work Act you only need to show they are adequately trained. Therefore being trained by a qualified HGV Driving Instructor to driving test standards is in my minf adequate.
Don’t forget - within a few restrictions a cat B licence holder can drive a HGV on the public road - without L plates and without being accompanied. But they must be adequatley trained as well as stay within the prescribed restrictions.
shep532:
Don’t forget - within a few restrictions a cat B licence holder can drive a HGV on the public road - without L plates and without being accompanied. But they must be adequatley trained as well as stay within the prescribed restrictions.
That’s news to me, got a link to more information on this one?
Paul
repton:
shep532:
Don’t forget - within a few restrictions a cat B licence holder can drive a HGV on the public road - without L plates and without being accompanied. But they must be adequatley trained as well as stay within the prescribed restrictions.That’s news to me, got a link to more information on this one?
Paul
Driving larger goods vehicles (LGV) on a car driving licence
Don’t see anything about being adequately trained though 
tachograph:
repton:
shep532:
Don’t forget - within a few restrictions a cat B licence holder can drive a HGV on the public road - without L plates and without being accompanied. But they must be adequatley trained as well as stay within the prescribed restrictions.That’s news to me, got a link to more information on this one?
Paul
Driving larger goods vehicles (LGV) on a car driving licence
Don’t see anything about being adequately trained though
Not only that, I can’t see the OP having a fleet of trucks that conform to this definition, or wishing to train someone to drive them.
directGov:
goods vehicle which is not used on public roads or, if it is so used during any calendar week:i. is used only in passing from land in the occupation of a person keeping the vehicle to other land in the occupation of that person
ii. is not used on public roads for distances exceeding an aggregate of 9.7 kilometres in that calendar week
What’s a red herring then? 
Regards,
Nick
tachograph:
repton:
shep532:
Don’t forget - within a few restrictions a cat B licence holder can drive a HGV on the public road - without L plates and without being accompanied. But they must be adequatley trained as well as stay within the prescribed restrictions.That’s news to me, got a link to more information on this one?
Paul
Driving larger goods vehicles (LGV) on a car driving licence
Don’t see anything about being adequately trained though
Ahh yes, more than “a few restrictions” in there though. To be honest I was expecting the OP’s answer to be something along the lines of the “remove the 5th wheel / incomplete vehicle” myth that comes up on here every so often.
Paul
tachograph:
Don’t see anything about being adequately trained though
No but presumably you still need to be insured and I wonder how easy it would be to get insurance to drive an LGV a couple of hundred yards up the road between two of your own yards that covered people without C/C+E licences.
Paul
It’s barely relevant anyway, it’s the truck that can only do 9.7 km max in a week on a public road, not the driver.
Not many hauliers are going to make money at that.
It certainly doesn’t mean that an unlicenced yard shunter can shunt artics across a road to another yard, but it would
allow the driver of an untaxed yard shunt vehicle to do so, just not too often in a week.
Regards,
Nick.
ncooper:
It certainly doesn’t mean that an unlicenced yard shunter can shunt artics across a road to another yard, but it would
allow the driver of an untaxed yard shunt vehicle to do so, just not too often in a week.
I could be missing something but I read it completely the other way round.
Someone who only has a Cat B licence can legally drive a C/C+E vehicle across a road to another yard as long as it doesn’t do more than a few km on the road a week, but as far as I’m aware it still has to be taxed and insured to do so (unless there is some kind of tax exemption for vehicles that only travel short distances on public roads too).
Paul
Sorry, I didn’t express myself very well.
What I meant was that the original question was could a cat B holder shunt in a private yard, answer, from the RTA point of view, yes.
Then this red herring came up about driving them on a road, under “a few conditions”.
My point was that, although true, this exemption is not relevant to the OP, as it is the vehicles that are restricted to 9.7 km, not the driver restricted to 9.7 km in any or multiple vehicles.
Not only that, the definiton of the vehicles is
goods vehicle which is not used on public roads or, if it is so used during any calendar week:
i. is used only in passing from land in the occupation of a person keeping the vehicle to other land in the occupation of that person
so only a yard vehicle could be driven across the road by the cat B driver, not the fleet as described in the OP.
Whether it needs to be taxed is moot, probably, at a much reduced rate, but certainly it needs to be insured.
Regards,
Nick.
I have a class 2 licence and shunt artics in the yard, the wash boys have never had even a class 2 but drive the rigids. We were all trained by the driver trainer and signed off and have an in yard assessment every year to make sure we are of an acceptable standard.
I obviously caused a few issues with my comments about driving an HGV on the public road with a Cat B licence.
I didn’t mean this was an answer to the original question - more that if they let a Cat B licence holder drive on the public road in an HGV then surely there will be no issues within a private yard.
Obviously this isn’t just any old HGV - got to be a yard shunter type vehicle but many companies use a standard truck for this kind of duty.
Granted insurance may be an issue for the public road bit … never checked.
The bit about being adequately trained - I got this from my Transport Manager CPC notes. It’s more a HSE thing than anything but the case study we were given was for a company that used a fleet of tractors and various drivers to cross a public road from one yard to another. The actual distance travelled on the road was literally hundreds of metres if I remember correctly. All was OK - local authorities knew this company was doing this until one day there was a road traffic accident whilst one of the vehicles was on the public road.
Company got prosecuted becasue the person driving had no relevant training record and they could not prove he was adequately trained.
This information wasn’t a red herring as maybe suggested - it was a valid point with regard to what you can and can’t get away with - wasn’t it? 
This is from the exemptions for vocational licences.
The UK driver licensing regulations allow certain large goods and passenger vehicles to be driven on a category B (car) licence. If the licence holder is only permitted to drive category B vehicles with automatic transmission, they may only drive the above vehicles if they have automatic transmission.
The Driving Standards Agency has confirmed that these drivers would also be out of scope of the driver CPC requirements when in the UK.
These exemptions are the same ones that permit a police officer to drive a lorry or bus without passing a vocational driving test.
I also believe that these vehicles could be operated as a works truck for excise duty payments.
But none of this answers the OP question. Yes you can drive a shunter in your own yard with adequate training, whether the gates are open or closed or whether the yard is full of office staff
