the other day while working in the transport office, we had an agency guy come in who hadn`t worked for us before, or at least not recently, so as usual I asked him for his driving licence so I could copy it for our records and checks.
but while I had the licence in my hand out of sight of the driver, I became suspicious because the paper counterpart looked a little faded in colour, so Iooked a little closer at it, and lo and behold it was a colour photocopy, no watermarks on it or nowt, so I raised the issue with the shift TM pointing out the faults, he dismissed my concerns.
how would I and the company stand if something serious occured??
Pierre,
I had this problem when I first started working where I am now. I had the old style paper licence that had seen better times although still of a reasonable quality and quite acceptable.
However, during my first week there, they wanted the usual photo-copy, so I gave the ‘original’ to them and went on my merry way. The 'phone goes a little later, ‘come into the office Terry, weve got a prob with your licence’
The photo-copy had a watermark through it that said ’ WARNING-THIS IS A PHOTO-COPY etc. etc etc. (Something like that anyway) By all accounts its a measure of protection built in to driving licences. I believe they are made from the same paper that ‘pound notes’ are, they do not contain any ‘brighteners’ so photo-copying them highlights the watermark.
Sounds like a dodgy copy, if you dont see the original, they must have documentation from DVLA etc. to back up their paperwork. More aggressive questioning officer…
Terry
As a matter of interest, after reading this thread, I just made a photocopy of the paper part of my licence and no warning showed up. Next to the original you can see it is a copy because the colours are a little less bright but the copy does look good and if it was ‘aged’ a little it may be accepted in a busy traffic office, when the may give it little more than a quick glance.
Answering your original question of who the company would stand.
If the driver was not licensed then he would not be insured and you as a company could be fined or allowing him to use one of your trucks unlicenced. You may also get done for no insurance etc.