In revoking the one-vehicle O-Licence held by Rugby-based Martin Franklin and disqualifying him from acting as a transport manager (TM) for 12 months, Traffic Commissioner (TC) Miles Dorrington issued him with a warning that he now had no lawful authority to operate any regulated vehicle for any commercial purpose.
Mr Franklin was unequivocally warned that if he did so operate, then DVSA could impound any vehicle used. He could also be prosecuted in the criminal courts. The decision, and the letter from the traffic area office notifying Mr Franklin of the decision on 6 March, was regarded by DVSA as a pre-impounding letter.
Mr Franklin, who did not attend a Birmingham Public Inquiry scheduled for 4 March, had stated that he wanted to surrender his O-Licence. TC Dorrington had refused that request because the case was far too serious. It was in the interests of justice, and in the public interest and interest of compliant operators, that he considered taking regulatory action.
Principal among the findings of fact were missing and or missed periodic maintenance inspections; a forward planner not being properly used; an absence of any written defect or recall system; no PSV incident system in place; a lack of driver defect reporting sheets provided alongside an acceptance that there was no suitable driver defect reporting system in place at the time of the maintenance investigation; no routine roller road brake testing; a very poor MoT test history with a 100% initial failure rate and a 66% final failure rate from four tests; and an “S” marked immediate prohibition for a dangerous defect identified at an MoT test on 19 September 2025.
That vehicle was presented for testing with a requirement to remove the prohibition on 30 September 2025 — the vehicle again failed after receiving a further delayed prohibition and was marked as ‘unfit for service’.
An MoT is the one day of the year, known about in advance, when a vehicle must meet the bare minimum standard of roadworthiness. If it fails an MoT, it means the vehicle is not roadworthy. A failure at MoT also means the defect(s) that gave rise to the failure were present before the vehicle is presented for test and when in service.
The MoT failure for Mr Franklin’s vehicle on 19 September was extremely worrying. The defect was marked as ‘do not drive until repaired (dangerous defects)!’ with further defects recorded as ‘repair immediately’.
The vehicle was clearly driven to the MoT station and had been in use before that day on a public road, since those defects were not likely to have occurred spontaneously on the day of the test. If any pre-MoT maintenance inspection had been undertaken, it had clearly been hopelessly inadequate. The vehicle put the safety of road users, and any passengers carried, at risk.
It was hard to see how Mr Franklin could not be regarded as reckless with his MoT history and the condition of the vehicle presented to its MoT test on 16 September 2025. There could be no doubt that Mr Franklin was not ‘effective’ as the TM.
