DVSA (formerly VOSA) Advice

We have received the following advice from Mark Horton, Traffic Enforcement Scheme Manager of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, by e-mail dated 20/02/2015:

“It seems to me that the drivers of your vehicles would fall outside of the driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) regulations as there is no suggestion of any commercial use. Assuming the drivers do not receive any payment I see no reason why they would not fit into the exemption covered in article 2(f) EC 2003-59: ‘vehicles used for non-commercial carriage of passengers or goods, (for personal use)’.

“Furthermore para 22 of the preamble to the same regulation states: ‘However, it is desirable, in order to respect the principles of Community law, that drivers of vehicles used to carry out transport where this is considered to have a lesser impact on road safety or where the requirements of this Directive would impose a disproportionate economic or social burden , should be exempted from the application of this Directive.’

“I put the ‘for personal use’ in brackets for a reason – there is some ambiguity around the use of words in this exemption and we have to view it with the preamble in mind and of course within the spirit for which the regulations were intended.

“It is of course incumbent upon me to remind you that this is merely opinion and that points of law are decided by the court, with this in mind you might decide to seek independent legal advice.

“In addition to the above we currently have no legal precedent to fall back on or to inform any decisions we might make on the subject. Our examiners deal with vehicles and drivers as presented on the day and make decisions as informed as the situation will allow.”

In summary – unpaid volunteers driving pigeon transporters fall outside of the regulation and therefore do not require CPC’s. We trust this gives some clarity to the situation.