Open consultation

Review of the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Document: Vocational Driver Conduct

Published 17 April 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

1. STC Foreword

As Senior Traffic Commissioner, I have powers to issue Statutory Guidance and Statutory Directions to the Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain (the Statutory Documents).

The Statutory Documents are published to provide transparency in the way traffic commissioners work to deliver consistent and fair regulation of the transport industry and represents our efforts to modernise the licensing regime.

I am pleased to introduce this consultation reviewing the approach traffic commissioners take when regulating the drivers of Large Goods Vehicles and Passenger Carrying Vehicles. This document is a critical component of our regulatory framework, providing guidance and directions on how traffic commissioners should interpret the law in relation to vocational driver conduct.

The role of traffic commissioners is about ensuring road safety and maintaining public confidence in the commercial driving sector. Our decisions impact not only the drivers and operators but also the wider road users. It is, therefore, essential that our approach to considering driver conduct is fair, consistent, and transparent.

This consultation seeks to gather feedback from all stakeholders, including drivers, operators, representative organisations, and the public. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us evaluating the effectiveness of the current guidelines and identifying areas for improvement. 

I encourage you to participate in this consultation and share your views. Together, we can continue to uphold the highest standards of road safety and public confidence in our regulatory processes.

Thank you for your time and contributions.

Richard Turfitt
Senior Traffic Commissioner for Great Britain

2. Introduction

2.1 Role of the Traffic Commissioners

The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain are independent specialist regulators. They are responsible for the licensing and regulation of commercial vehicle operators and regulating the conduct of professional drivers in the lorry, bus and coach industries.

Traffic commissioners have a role in regulating those with driving entitlement for Large Goods Vehicles and/or Passenger Carrying Vehicles. Where there is a question over a driver’s fitness to hold vocational entitlement, the Secretary of State may refer the case to a traffic commissioner, so that they can consider their conduct.

The Statutory Document on vocational driver conduct is issued by the Senior Traffic Commissioner pursuant to section 4C of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981. It provides Statutory Guidance as to the way in which the Senior Traffic Commissioner believes that traffic commissioners should interpret the law. It also provides Statutory Directions which are addressed to the traffic commissioners in respect of the approach to be taken by staff acting on behalf of individual traffic commissioners and dictate the operation of delegated functions.

3. Background

The approach set out in the Statutory Document has largely remained unchanged for a number of years.

The traffic commissioners previously reviewed their approach to the regulation of vocational driver conduct in 2015. This consultation resulted in the adoption of an Annex setting out useful case examples.

A further review was carried out in 2019 which further revised these Annexes and the approach to driver disqualification, abusive behaviour and intimidation of officials, that cases will proceed if a driver fails to attend a hearing without notice, procedure for providing additional language support for drivers during hearings, the increased penalties for mobile phone use and an annex setting out the starting points for drivers who are currently serving in the armed forces.

4. Scope

The traffic commissioners aim to promote a safe road transport industry which supports compliance, fair competition and protects the environment. As part of their key strategic objectives to ensure that regulation is targeted, they committed to reviewing how a driver’s suitability is determined in order to concentrate resource on those who pose the greatest risk to road safety and fair competition.

This consultation follows an initial gathering of views and information on the standards that should be applied to professional drivers from a group of key stakeholders in late 2024. This feedback has been considered as part of the current draft. We thank all those who participated for their input. These discussions also reaffirmed that drivers are generally unaware of the role of traffic commissioners.

The consultation now primarily seeks to gather formal responses from stakeholders on the proposed revised Statutory Document.

The specific areas of interest relate to:

• achieving consistent regulatory outcomes for drivers by considering the risk they pose to other road users;
• the referral and starting points for regulatory action against drivers;
• the delegation of matters to staff acting on behalf of traffic commissioners;
• the use of case studies in the document.

In addition to feedback on the Statutory Document, we would welcome views on how to raise the profile of traffic commissioners with drivers. Traffic commissioners do not have the same access to contact information for drivers as they do for vehicle operators. This limits our ability to communicate with drivers directly to provide useful advice on a traffic commissioner’s role, powers and how to stay compliant. Work is currently ongoing to explore how traffic commissioners can use their contacts with operators and if there are options through the Driver CPC process.

5. Statutory Document Revisions

The draft Statutory Document has been uploaded to accompany this document. Two versions are available, one showing the amendments in red and another without this highlighting.

The main revisions to the document are:

• clarifying the legislative provisions which apply when traffic commissioners consider the conduct of vocational drivers;
• outlining the approach traffic commissioners will take when an operator notifies that a driver has failed a drink or drugs test;
• setting out the requirement for hearings and decisions to be transparent with clear reasons provided;
• identifying which cases may be suitable for a virtual hearing;
• clarifying that the starting points and case examples are nonbinding on the presiding commissioner, who retains full discretion in their decision-making;
• consolidating the different types of conduct and offences listed in the starting points annex to make them easier to interpret;
• removal of the clause that set out that a driver who received a community penalty from a court should be called to a hearing. This has been removed to ensure that those drivers who received a community order because they are unable to pay a fine are not treated unfairly;
• removal of the starting point related to multiple CU80 offences for the mobile phone offences. This reflects the previous change in the law to increase the standard penalty to six points meaning that multiple offences are likely to lead to a disqualification of all a driver’s entitlements;
• revision of the disqualification thresholds to recognise that a longer ban is typically imposed for more serious offending;
• identification of additional negative and positive features which can form part of the risk assessment of a driver’s fitness;
• adding further case examples to the Annex to provide additional scenarios which explain how a traffic commissioner may use their discretion.

The draft revised documents can be found on the consultation page.

6. Questions

1. Does the revised draft guidance better explain the role of the traffic commissioner with regards to their LGV/PCV driving entitlement? If not, how could it be improved.
2. Are the processes for considering whether regulatory intervention against a driver who holds LGV/PCV entitlement clear and appropriate, particularly the starting points and guidelines for specific offences? If not, how could it be improved.
3. Is the introduction of a risk-based consideration appropriate to determining whether a driver is fit (by way of conduct) to hold LGV/PCV entitlement? Are there any other positive or negative features that should be included.
4. Is the use of technology to hear cases remotely helpful and are the starting points for when a case is suitable for a virtual hearing appropriate? If not, please provide additional comment.
5. Are the case examples useful and clear? Please comment on whether there are any other case examples which would be useful.
6. Please provide any ideas on how we may provide useful information directly to drivers without the benefit of being able to write or email them directly.

7. How to respond

This consultation was issued on 17 April 2025 and will run until 29 May 2025. Please ensure that your response reaches us before the closing date so that we can consider your comments.

When responding, state whether you are responding as an individual or representing the views of an organisation. If responding on behalf of a larger organisation:

• make it clear who the organisation represents;
• how the views of members were assembled.

To respond you can either:

7.1 Email

tccoconsultations@otc.gov.uk

7.2 Post

Chris Woodcock
Traffic Commissioners Corporate Office Manager
Traffic Commissioner Corporate Office
Eastbrook
Shaftesbury Road
Cambridge
CB2 8BF

8. Freedom of information

Information provided in response to this consultation, including personal information, may be subject to publication or disclosure in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

If you want information that you provide to be treated as confidential, be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory code of practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence.

In view of this, it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information, we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain.

The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain will process your personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties.

9. Consultation principles

The consultation is being conducted in line with the government’s key consultation principles.