One of my drivers had a roadside check recently in Central London and was issued with a warning as he had stayed at home the night before with the vehicle.
The driver in question lives in East London, was with the same group all week, and every day was spent in London sightseeing and taking part in the usual kind of attractions.
The warning stated that “drivers are not permitted to keep vehicles at home for convenience and they should be parked at the operating centre (unless they are away on tour) and the operator should know that.”
Well, thank you very much for that gem of knowledge. Every decent operator does, as a matter of fact, know that.
However, we are based some 25 miles outside of Central London — so am I to bring the driver back to base, adding 90 minutes to the duty, meaning he has then to return home, spending another 90 minutes in his car, only to repeat the same process the next morning and every day of that week?
I imagine if that driver had stayed in a London Premier Inn for the week it would have been fine, despite the fact he would no doubt have had better rest being at home (it is never easy to get sound sleep at any hotel in my opinion).
As far as I am concerned, the driver was on a tour, end of story.
What baffles me is the complete lack of common sense, just so that an officious DVSA officer could write something, anything, on his little piece of paper.
Then again, why should we ever expect any common sense these days — especially when we look at the PSVAR situation.
Name and address supplied.
