I work for a firm which manufactures, delivers and installs high-end beds and chairs. We run a fleet of 7.5ton trucks, which go out usually with brand new stuff and we deliver and install it.
Now as I understand, the restricted O-licence (vs a national one) is restricted to “your own goods” or something like that. What exactly does that mean? Given that the items are paid for by the customer before we install them, are they our own? And if we offer a “move” service too, where a bed/chair we previously supplied is collected from one address and delivered to another, is that still “our own goods”? I am confident that if we, during the move, said “we’ll take that chest of drawers too” we are NOT covered.
What’s the penalty for taking something we aren’t licenced for - I’ve heard £5000, but is this to the company or could the driver be faced with a fine too? And if we’re not licensed, are we insured…can of worms etc!
Doing the new stuff is OK, of course.
The used stuff is possibly, bought back by your company and re-sold elsewhere, so is your company’s goods. Or possibly is it actually rented or leased out to a user? So is still always the company’s own goods.
If the company receives no monies from a third party to shift stuff, that is you are not involved in hire and reward work, you are probably OK.
Even though the goods are paid for before delivery I believe they would still be considered your own good so a restricted O-Licence would be fine.
However transporting goods from A to B neither of which are your premises would require a full O-Licence unless they were delivered to the wrong address in the first place.
I’ll wait to be corrected on this but I’m 99% sure I’m right about this
edit: Just to add that if you’re talking about moving an item as a favour during a delivery on the odd occasion I doubt anyone’s going to care, but if you’re talking about starting a moving service where you will be transporting other peoples goods on a regular basis a restricted O-Licence will not cover it.
To clarify, a “bed move” would be charged to the customer, it is not normally part of an overall service/purchase/experience. Sometimes the sales guys offer a free “bed move” if the customer wants a bed but is moving soon and its seen as an obstacle to them getting their commission.
Generally you still own the goods until the customer takes delivery
It is not
100% correct
If you got caught out, the TC would assume you’ve been extracting the urine on an ongoing basis: Consider this comparison, someone gets caught fornicating with a goat, how likely is it that they will be considered a goat fornicator for the rest of their existence and be unable to claim it was a mistake or “just that one time”.
The OTC can take a variety of actions against an operator who gets caught doing something they shouldn’t, until they pass their verdict on you, you won’t know if the O-licence is going to be curtailed (reduced in vehicle margin), suspended, or revoked altogether. And yes, if you’re operating outside the remit of the O-licence, any insurance company would naturally cancel your insurance.
Could the driver be held accountable? Not really. It will be all on the Operator, as as a Restricted licence has no TM then it’s all on the toes of the Directors, whether they did or did not know what they were doing was wrong. Our TC is famous for saying “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
Its the driving while uninsured aspect which would be most concerning. Whether anything would actually come of it (say, a minor accident with a high-value car, while moving a bed) prompted the insurance company looking deeper and deeper, I don’t know.
I would always assume the the first duty of any insurance claim investigator is to find a way not to pay out. I would expect any claim involving a commercial vehicle would immediately be analysed for any irregularity.
off topic i know. but supposed an agency bod rocked up at a job and got thrown a set of keys and it was later discovered that he wasnt insured to drive the vehicle or using it in a way that invalidated the insurance through no fault of his own who is in the wrong?
It is the Operators responsibility to supply a vehicle that is road legal. End of.
Drivers need to check roadworthiness via their walkaround check and they are held responsible for that, but it does not include checking insurance (impossible to do) or tax and MOT (easy to do but “not my job” for any driver)
Its not a can of worms lol You CANNOT carry other peoples goods on a restricted licence, If they have been paid for ? Its NOT YOUR goods anymore, Also you cannot move stock from one place and deliver to another again NOT your goods, Standard National required, therefore needs a Proper Transport Mananger, not a micky mouse one that you have at Mo,
Section 3 “Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995” states:
A restricted licence is an operator’s licence under which a goods vehicle may be used on a road for the carriage of goods for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by the holder of the licence, other than that of carrying goods for hire or reward.
I would have thought that if the goods being transported are made or sold by the company holding a restricted O licence it’s legal regardless of whether or not the goods have been paid for.
I suppose charging for delivery may be a bit of a grey area, I’m not sure about that but I would have thought it would not be a problem
Your doing nothing major wrong except asking here for advice
It will be nit picked here as if you committed a ■■■■■■■■■ offence
Take no notice and carry on earning a living
Having been inside of the Traffic Commissioner’s little courtroom and seen an operator getting well and truly reamed for not doing things correctly, I would strongly recommend OP follows “nitpicking” advice he gets.
Anyone who feels like sailing close to the wind might want to bookmark this page for future reference
Uploaded data is stored at their end, I always keep my own copies of the data as a backup, they’re relatively small file sizes
You what?! It’s not about data storage, it’s about data analysis and being able to produce the wide range of reports the job needs: driver infringements, WTD, vehicle mileage, especially “missing miles” where the vehicle has moved with no card in it.
rather than selling 10 copies of the software to 10 companies if they charge by the driver so if each company has 10 drivers thats 100 lots of revenue every month. thats the model microsoft has adopted.
the programing and getting it to raise various reports is the easy bit. The hard bit would be finding out how the data is stored on the card and how it is downloaded.
as a simple example…
if ( drivetime > 470 ) {
printf(“naughty naughty you drove %d minuets over 4h 30 with no break”, drivetime - 470);
}
There is nothing hard about downloading data from the VU or the card.
If the software was sold it could be hacked, so cowboy operators would continue to be dangerous cowboys. It’s such a minor outlay for any operator it’s barely worth mentioning
Just as i said, overreacting, paranoid, living for the moment to be condemned for the slightest thing you are doing wrong
There is always one or two who will quote the rules to the tee thinking they are gods law when in truth the only time they ever get to preach it is on a forum like this because anyone they knows them personally knows they are quacks
You are doing nothing wrong in a small sense
Im quite sure if you’re truck was in a accident the last thing on a coppers mind would be
O i wonder if that bed in the back is being moved for reward
It never happens, it’s been done every day
And most of all it’s no big deal
Just read the replies of who i mean paranoid wannabes trying to be carryfast or out do him with their directing every post (thinking it makes them look intelligent)
In other words making a big thing out of nothing
