I have been suspended for driving a hired lorry for my large firm with no operators licence, got stopped by VOSA and ticked off and told to carry on, is this classed as a sackable offence, just waiting to hear the outcome. been with same firm for over 20 years, they have told me I am losing my service bonus.
angelle88:
I have been suspended for driving a hired lorry for my large firm with no operators licence, got stopped by VOSA and ticked off and told to carry on, is this classed as a sackable offence, just waiting to hear the outcome. been with same firm for over 20 years, they have told me I am losing my service bonus.
Hi angelle88,
My guess is that a lot will depend on how it was that you came to be driving that vehicle.
For instance, if one of the office staff gave you the keys and told you to drive it, then your defence in any disciplinary hearing is that you were told to drive it by Mr/Ms XXXX. It is for the office staff to allocate drivers to vehicles, so you drove what you were told to drive. Simple as that.
In any other circumstances, you might have some explaining to do. 
The first point is; how long has your company been using the hired vehicle? You don’t need to notify the DVLA of a hired vehicle being introduced onto the fleet immediately and you only need to display an O licence disc within 28 days of the start of hire. So, if they have been using it less than 28 days, potentially, the company did not break any laws.
Secondly; if the vehicle has been in use for over 28 days and an O licence should be displayed, it is reasonable to say that a driver is at fault because the displaying of an O licence disc should be part of your daily checks. Having said that, if you are at fault then someone in your office (the CPC holder) is also at fault. When did they notify DVLA of the need for an O licence? So, have they been suspended too?
anelan:
The first point is; how long has your company been using the hired vehicle? You don’t need to notify the DVLA of a hired vehicle being introduced onto the fleet immediately and you only need to display an O licence disc within 28 days of the start of hire. So, if they have been using it less than 28 days, potentially, the company did not break any laws.Secondly; if the vehicle has been in use for over 28 days and an O licence should be displayed, it is reasonable to say that a driver is at fault because the displaying of an O licence disc should be part of your daily checks. Having said that, if you are at fault then someone in your office (the CPC holder) is also at fault. When did they notify DVLA of the need for an O licence? So, have they been suspended too?
As above , I got pulled by VOSA a few years back for not displaying an O licence and suspicion of being overloaded.
When explained it was a hired vehicle and the vehicle was only a week old nothing else was mentioned.
I was also 250kg under the max weight so that was also ok .
The VOSA crew were still a miserable bunch even though I was 100% legal .
When I last worked it would take months for O licence discs to arrive for new vehicles. DVSA can check the database to see if the truck is listed , it does seem a bit out dated to still have the discs as everything else seems to be online now .
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No, I don’t think what you have described amounts to “gross misconduct”. However, if you have signed eg a daily check sheet stating that you checked the disc then I suppose they could look at it more seriously due to some degree of deliberate falsification of records (in their eyes).
I think you’ll be looking at some sort of reprimand/warning at worst.
Don’t forget - suspension as part of the disciplinary process is not a sanction - it is simply a way of removing you from the workplace while enquiries into the matter are made.
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