Driving licensing review – call for evidence

There is so much confusion around the need for D1 licences in schools. We have taken the stance that all drivers should have a full D1 licence, but it’s causing a lot of problems due to the high costs involved in getting a licence. Further clarity is required around whether salary paid teachers are driving school minibuses for hire and reward. Because this has not been clarified or tested in the courts, many Local Authorities are taking the cautious stance and going down the mandatory D1 route. However, by doing this children are missing out on trips and sports events because they can’t afford to train any staff to drive the minibuses! Can you please offer any advise on this matter?

I work at Sheffield city council, and cannot drive the minibuses.
I have held a driving licence since 2004, and have drove vans bit cannot drive the minibuses has they have seats, but the vans I’ve driven are similar size.
The department has difficulties on many occasions with staff shortages, with some former drivers, who got promotion to the office having to go out and drive.
They have a lot of agency staff which come and go, and most of the team are ‘retired’, or just topping up their pensions.
The average age must be about 65.
If all these packed up at same time, the place would not be able to operate has they couldn’t cope with the demand with the amount of buses we send out.
I could see this several years ago happening with an ever ageing workforce, and if it doesn’t change in the future I can see them going.

Hi
Please can you update the status or replies to this presentation, and when or if we could see a change to the licensing laws.
Regards
Andy

I have a LGV Class 1 licence and wish to volunteer to drive the local mini bus to take the old people of the village to the shops in the nearest town.
Volunteer Drivers are hard to come by for the charity because of the 1997 rule

Seems bureaucratic to me that having held a HGV licence and driving professionally for 20 odd years I can’t help my village by driving a small mini bus

We operate a transport service within a boarding School with 650 Pupils; for them, this is their home, and the ability to get them where they need to be is key to education and welfare.
If the D1 qualification were to become valid, it would hugely benefit the school and its Pupils.
We operate an in-house Test and Training for all drivers so that safety training would be undertaken regardless of their current D1 status.
In 2-3 years, the declining number of D1 valid drivers will become a significant issue for the school and the transportation of its pupils.

There is a diminishing group of potential volunteers who hold a D1 license or who are prepared to have the medical and sight tests to continue to retain the D1 category once they reach 70. It also seems odd that there’s a maximum weight limit for drivers without a D1 license but it appears that the weight limit doesn’t matter if the vehicle has a wheelchair lift. What’s the logic?

I believe we need to allow a D1 on the licence but have a minimum age and only drive after a competency assessment ie MIDAS training.
As a community transport company we need a larger pool of drivers so any solution without compromising safety get’s my vote.

I’m in favour of the proposed change. I must add however that all personnel must undergo some form of assessment/training to ensure that we are all fulfilling our duty of care to our precious cargo.
We mustn’t return to the days when asked if you have D1you are handed the keys without the training and assessment required.

Yes I agree so ever one can drive the minbus over 3.5

Safety of drivers and passengers is paramount and must not be forgotten. Driving a minibus is very different than driving a car and brings a lot of responsibility with it eg passengers.
As a charity organisation – we cannot afford to place “younger volunteers” on a minibus training course if they passed their car driving test post 1997.
The volunteers who drive our minibus are the people who passed their car license pre 1997 – however, we still place them on 1 day minibus training to evidence their competencies, this is refreshed every 3 years. The difficulty ahead is that these pool of people who are able to drive minibuses are reducing.
A solution does need to be found going forward but not at the expense of safety.

YES allow D1 on licence. This will help voluntary organisations

The spirit of the 1997 change was sound, in that it would attempt to protect all involved from incidents caused by a lack of experience.

If vehicle capacity had reduced to reflect the change in MAM, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but instead busses retained capacity but were down plated, creating a significant risk to drivers carrying adult passengers. Also, loop holes have been exploited by widespread use of accessible busses to increase the plated weight.
Our fleet of busses are all accessible and re-plated from 4005kg to 4025kg, allowing all of our Cat B drivers to drive them anyway, despite having no one on site that requires an accessible bus. The law might as well revert back as it would save time, confusion and expense.
In my opinion, the first minibus familiarisation training even for D1 holders should be made compulsory by law, with attendance at subsequent refreshers non-compulsory, but assessed as required by the transporting company.

I would suggest that having a D1 on your license is insufficient proof that you are responsible for the safe transportation of vulnerable people . The Midas training course , as was, determined a comprehensive method of approach to safe and efficient driving which should be adopted by all personnel in their day to day employment, whether voluntary or otherwise . A moving and handling qualification should also be deployed.

We are a community bus organisation running scheduled and private hire services. We are finding difficulty attracting volunteer drivers to drive our services. Anything that can be done to loosen restrictions on the age of potential volunteer drivers would be welcome

DfT survey completed.

The current regulations prevent us as a school from offering a range of trips including extra-curricular fixtures.

To lower the requirement of licence to drive a mini bus devalues the skill required to drive a PCV carring vehicle.
Has a full PCV licence holder I will give up driving mini buses on a voluntary basis.
I hope togod this does norhappen.

The current anomalous situation, where different rules apply depending on the date a driving test was passed, create confusion and need to be rationalised. Add to this the recent changes applied to B licence holders ability to tow larger trailers/caravans (up to 7,000kg train weight) and it seems ridiculous to restrict minibus driving to 3,500kg. We need to rationalise the position by increasing the minibus weight limit by a similar amount.

DFT survey completed

We currently have difficulty recruiting paid drivers as all of our D1 drivers are over 49 and so unless people do the PCV test they cannot undertake paid work. It would help our staffing problems if C1 drivers could drive minibuses, and even better if B category people could drive minibuses. Younger people being able to undertake paid work would help us to recruit more bank drivers as they also may be more likely to have more than one job. Category B drivers would be given additional training (MIDAS) and would be just as capable/efficient/safe and those with a ‘grandfather’ licence. Committee member Green Community Travel,

Time to break free from the chains holding everyone back. Red tape has been strangling the sector for too long.

I help run a volunteer bus service once a week to the local town for the elderly residents of my village. There is not a public transport option available ( Freeland to Witney, Oxon).
We need as many volunteer drivers as possible, we are always struggling to get them. Many are unable to help as they are younger and only have Cat B licences. Soon we will run out of drivers if this continues to be a D1 requirement that is not available for Cat B holders.

We are a small Community Bus operator, and we rely on persons with D1 on their licence. We are facing a future when when Cat B drivers lose the automatic right to drive a mini bus, and would face the expense of training all new volunteer drivers. We are in favour of the proposed change, particularly as we are committed to undertake MIDAS training for all our drivers.