Compliance is the part of the job that never gets easier and never gets finished. It is also the part that decides whether a bad day becomes an expensive one.

What it covers

Four areas, and they fail in different ways.

**Vehicles.** MOTs, servicing, and the daily reality of brakes, tyres and lights. Most of it is process rather than judgement, which is why it slips when somebody is busy.

**Drivers.** Licence checks, training, and fatigue. Licence checking is the one fleets most often assume is handled and most often is not.

**Legal.** Tax, insurance and the rest of the paperwork.

**Records.** If it is not written down it did not happen, and that is not a figure of speech. In an investigation the record is the defence.

Direct Vision Standard

HGVs over 12 tonnes working in Greater London need a permit, based on a star rating for how much the driver can see directly from the cab.

Below the minimum rating you fit safety measures instead: camera monitoring of the blind spots and audible warnings. The permit follows the equipment.

Drivers’ hours

A maximum of nine hours driving a day for HGV drivers, and a 56-hour weekly cap.

The limits are a floor, not a target. A driver inside the rules can still be too tired to be driving, and the rules will not help you afterwards.

Emissions zones

Low Emission and Ultra Low Emission Zones now cover more of the UK than they did, with different rules in different cities. Route planning that ignores them turns into penalty charges nobody budgeted for.

What actually helps

**Telematics and cameras.** Useful for the parts of compliance that depend on knowing what happened rather than what was supposed to happen. Ask any supplier how you find out when one stops working.

**Training.** Defensive driving and refreshers. The measurable effect shows up in fuel and wear before it shows up in collisions.

**Daily checks.** Before and after every trip. Brakes, tyres, lights. Unglamorous, and the highest-value item on this list.

Making it stick

Write a policy that says what compliance means on your fleet, specifically, rather than restating the law back at people.

Name who owns each part. Compliance fails in the gaps between people who each assumed somebody else had it.

Subscribe to something that tells you when the rules move, because DVS has moved more than once.

Investigate incidents, including the ones where nothing was damaged. A near miss is the only free lesson you get.

If you want to work through any of this against your own fleet, get in touch.