Okay, so at the moment we have a couple of 6x2 DAF units on hire from a well known hire company.
Trouble is the tax runs out on one of them at midnight tonight, and despite a few calls to their office, and assurances that the tax is in place, as yet no disc has appeared.
So today, one of our supervisors ( who was scheduling vehicles for Monday ) calls our TM at home to ask him what to do about it.
TM says that â as long as we have the name of the person at the hire company who assures us the unit is taxed, then it should be used as normalâ !
Sorry, sounds like â â â â â â â â to me, Iâll stand to be corrected by all means, but I always thought that there were laws with regard to DISPLAYING the disc, and that it is the DRIVERSâ responsibility, as would be any penalties for failure TO display it. â â
thats been mentioned on here a few times.
as far as im concerned the truck would,nt move without a tax disc.
the days of having a note in the screen saying tax in the post are long gone.
I could be wrong about this but I would have thought that both the company and the driver could be prosecuted for using or allowing the vehicle on the road without displaying a tax disc.
Totaly agree , its a fine BUT , am i not rightin saying its the hire Co that will get hit with the fine?
they will get the automatic fine ,IF not taxed as of today , and any fines that your drivers pick up they will be liable for !
BUT my issue would be that without a valid road tax , you MIGHT not be insured ! ,
to be honest i wouldnt want to take it out on the road without it , but its up to you and TM!
gonzothejaffa1:
failure to display is a fine at the least
True. But the offence was deleted from the list of options on Fixed Penalty notices some 20+ years ago.
Excise duty is, what it says, a payment due to the Treasury. The Police are the responsibility of the Home Office. The Home Office arenât too keen on the Police being utilised as a âdetection/collectionâ Agency of the Treasury. Whilst Officers retain the option of submitting a form CLE2/6 to the DVLA for non-display/out of date Excise Licence, it remains the responsility of the DVLA, as a branch of the DfT, in their Revenue Raising function on behalf of the Treasury, to investigate the matter.
Going back to the days when vehicle/driver records were held at local Council level, before the Police could prosecute for Fail to Display/No Tax, they had to have issued an âAuthourity to Prosecuteâ from the Local Authority. IIRC this still applies to the CPS, albeit that the authority would be issued by the DVLA.
Personally, it wouldnât bother me. If it gets checked by ANPR, and bearing in mind that ANPR databases, for Excise Duty, are probably only updated something like a month after expiry, then they could welcomely impound the vehicle. The company would have to arrange for me to be picked up, or I would arrange travel back, and claim the costs involved + ALL of the hours resulting.
Regardless of the legalities of the issue per say.My concern would be working for a company that canât figure out the answer or keep track of things properly
Makes you wonder what else they fail to have suitable knowledge of or keep track of
since when has a driver been responsible for the tax on his truck â â ?
just put it down in the defect book, it really is not your problem.
â â â â â â â know it all drivers are a pain in the arse.
these are the the ones running "L" reg mazdas with NO mot and an out of date tax disc, which is left in the company car park all weekâŚâ â â â â â â â
with money being a bit tight, the hire company are doing the normal trick, of leaving it late to pay their tax, if they have any sense, it will be paid for tomorrow, there for, it registers on JULYs accounts, NOT Junes !!!
The authorities know that 01.07.2007 falls on a SUNDAYâŚâ â â â â â â â â
So the 6 points and ÂŁ120 fine i got when i was 19 for not having insurance,even though id paid ÂŁ945 with swinton insurance for the year ,the reason was âthe vehicle was not legally roadworthyâ having no current tax disc the insurance was void, though there was a claim involved so any way to wheedle out of paying up i suppose
The Bint Meister:
since when has a driver been responsible for the tax on his truck â â ?
Always. Whilst not being responsible for paying it, it is the duty of the driver to ensure the vehicle complies with the Road Traffic Act before taking it out.
Fallmonk:
Totaly agree , its a fine BUT , am i not rightin saying its the hire Co that will get hit with the fine?
they will get the automatic fine ,IF not taxed as of today , and any fines that your drivers pick up they will be liable for !
BUT my issue would be that without a valid road tax , you MIGHT not be insured ! ,
to be honest i wouldnt want to take it out on the road without it , but its up to you and TM!
The registered keeper would be fined for no tax, the driver for driving a vehicle with no tax/failing to display.
And the ânot insured because itâs not taxedâ is a load of crap. Even in the Road Traffic Act, there are provisions to allow an untaxed and non MOTâd vehicle to be used on the road for the purpose of driving to/from a MOT test.
It is an offence to drive a motor vehicle on the public highway without displaying a current, valid tax disk, unless the vehicle is exempt. End of story. No disk, no drive.
Fallmonk:
Totaly agree , its a fine BUT , am i not rightin saying its the hire Co that will get hit with the fine?
they will get the automatic fine ,IF not taxed as of today , and any fines that your drivers pick up they will be liable for !
BUT my issue would be that without a valid road tax , you MIGHT not be insured ! ,
to be honest i wouldnt want to take it out on the road without it , but its up to you and TM!
The registered keeper would be fined for no tax, the driver for driving a vehicle with no tax/failing to display.
And the ânot insured because itâs not taxedâ is a load of crap. Even in the Road Traffic Act, there are provisions to allow an untaxed and non MOTâd vehicle to be used on the road for the purpose of driving to/from a MOT test.
AFAIK the only way you can drive an untaxed vehicle or a vehicle with no MOT legally on the public road is to display Trade plates. To get trade plates you need a trade licence, presumably you have to pay to keep this each year (like road tax ) and traders insurance usually covers all vehicles used in connection of the business of the trader. So to me no road tax means the insurance isnât valid either.
Iâm sure the guys who trade plate for a living will be able to correct me if Iâm wrong
Happened to me a couple of years ago. Rental vehicle turned up on the 1st of the month with last months disc in the window. Point blank refused to take it out until the rental company turned up with the new disc. Pressured like hell by the company and the agency, but said unless I got it in writing via fax or the like from DVLA or equivalent authority I wouldnât take the vehicle out.
Same company last year gave me a rental vehicle for the day. On return tried to diesel up but no fuel key ⌠went into the office and found out that theyâd only got the vehicle the night before and no key had been issued yet. Worse still, the vehicle HADNâT been put on the company insurance!
Company Iâm driving for at the moment has had problems with Trailers losing Plate/Test certificate. They have a memo saying they have liaised with VOSA over the problem. When I get a trailer with missing Plate/Cert, I info TO and ensure I get a copy of the memo with TMâs signature & date on it saying that Iâve told them. This ensures that they do a proper check and donât just fob me off with the âItâs OK VOSA knowâ story.
The law appears to deal with Road tax (vehicle excise) as follows:
Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (as amended)
Penalty for using or keeping unlicensed vehicle.â s.29(1) If a person uses, or keeps, on a public road a vehicle (not being an exempt vehicle) which is unlicensed he is guilty of an offence.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) a vehicle is unlicensed if no vehicle licence or trade licence is in force for or in respect of the vehicle.
(3) [F1 Subject to subsection (3A)]a person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to an excise penalty ofâ
(a)level 3 on the standard scale, or
(b)five times the amount of the vehicle excise duty chargeable in respect of the vehicle, whichever is the greater.
So that seems to cover whether there is or isnât a licence (tax disc) in force.
As for displaying (exhibiting) the disc:
Not exhibiting licence.â s.33(1) A person is guilty of an offence ifâ
(a)he uses, or keeps, on a public road a vehicle in respect of which vehicle excise duty is chargeable, and
(b)there is not fixed to and exhibited on the vehicle in the manner prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State a licence for, or in respect of, the vehicle which is for the time being in force.
The penalty for failing to exhibit seems to be:
s.33(2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) [F2 or(1A)] is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale.
Back to the original question. I wouldnât drive the vehicle, because I wouldnât want my name to be written on the paperwork for the offence where it says âdriverâs name.â Iâd also imagine that the haulier who hired the truck would have a very strong argument as to why he wouldnât pay for hire days for which the tax disc was missing on the grounds that the vehicle wasnât legally useable. The haulier and/or the driver could be counted as the âuser,â depending on circumstances.
