Road haulage solicitors and traffic commissioner public inquiry? In cases where a court hearing is necessary, we can prepare your case and go to court to fight for the return of your vehicle. Legal representation is strongly advised as, if unsuccessful, you may be liable for substantial costs. Reclaiming Seized Loads: Quite often, owners of cargos carried will have had no involvement in the transport arrangements; these details are often handled by a freight forwarder or haulier. If the vehicle carrying the load is seized, it is often possible for our team to quickly arrange the release, collection and onward delivery of the load. Once a vehicle is seized, we must act quickly: there are strictly enforced time limits which, if missed, can result in the permanent loss of the vehicle.
If you are invited to attend an interview under caution or placed under “caution” during an encounter or inspection then immediate legal advice is essential. You are fully entitled to ask that the interview is postponed or stopped to enable you to obtain legal advice. Even if you think that you have done nothing wrong, receiving good legal advice before answering any questions will always be in your interests: too many people have admitted offences in interview which were not part of the investigation. Importantly, you have the right to have representation at any interview and to refuse to answer questions where the DVSA or police fail to allow you access to your lawyers.
Welcome to Smith Bowyer Clarke. We provide, simple, straightforward, and practical legal solutions to all your transport problems. In the eyes of the law, the company is using the vehicle when being driven by an employee. The company can also be deemed to have permitted offences to occur by requesting an employee to use a vehicle which has a defect. The consequences could be the driver attaining penalty points and potentially losing their licence. This may in turn impact your business. For a sole trader, they themselves may end up with penalty points on their licence. For a limited company, there would still be costly fines. If the company also holds an Operator’s Licence, such convictions would need to be reported to the Traffic Commissioner and could then impact on the Repute of the Operator. Read even more details on driving without tacho card.
The DVSA don’t waste much of their time visiting compliant operators so it is almost certainly to do with something that you, or your employees/agents, have done or have failed to do. The triggers are legion, but common ones are where your vehicles are stopped and mechanical defects are found; or the vehicle is overloaded; or there are drivers’ hours infringements discovered…. and so on. Alternatively it could be that the visit has been requested by the Traffic Commissioner as a result of a requested variation you have submitted. It might even be that your MOT failure rate is higher than the national average, which always sets alarm bells ringing.
During an operating centre inspection, the DVSA / VOSA will want to analyse your tachograph records and may want to download data from your vehicles and from the driver cards. If tachograph offences are found, the operator can expect to be interviewed under caution about them. Following the interview, the inspection officer will compile a report of their findings. Depending on the seriousness of any tacho infringements found, the operator may be prosecuted, or called to Public Inquiry with the Traffic Commissioner. For more information, speak to one of our specialist transport defence lawyers today. Read extra information on Road Transport Lawyer.