Guide
Drivers' hours penalties: DVSA fixed penalties, court and the O-licence
Updated
The cash penalty is rarely the expensive part. The same infringement lands on the operator's compliance record and, repeated, in front of the Traffic Commissioner.
Graduated fixed penalties at the roadside
DVSA examiners issue graduated fixed penalties for drivers' hours and tachograph offences, and gov.uk states the amount depends on how serious the offence is: you can be fined between £50 and £300 (gov.uk: fines and sanctions). Because drivers must carry the current day plus the previous 28 calendar days of records (56 days on international journeys to and from the EU), infringements from that whole window are in scope at a single stop. Verify the current penalty amounts on gov.uk before quoting them in driver handbooks; they are set by regulation and can change.
- Drivers without a satisfactory UK address pay an on-the-spot deposit equal to the fixed penalties issued, or £500 per offence if the case goes to court, capped at £1,500; the vehicle is immobilised if the deposit is not paid (gov.uk).
- A prohibition can be issued stopping the journey, and gov.uk states a vehicle can be immobilised where it is a danger to road safety, with a release charge to pay.
- The most serious offences, false records, tampering, deliberate device interference, are not fixed-penalty matters: they go to court, where fines are unlimited and forgery-type offences can carry custody.
Where it really costs an operator
- OCRS
- Every infringement feeds the Operator Compliance Risk Score, which drives how often your vehicles are stopped. A bad score compounds: more stops, more findings.
- Traffic Commissioner
- Patterns of hours offences trigger public inquiry, where the sanctions are on the licence itself: curtailment, suspension or revocation, and repute findings against the transport manager personally.
- Corporate exposure
- Operators and transport managers can be prosecuted for permitting drivers' hours offences, not just the driver who committed them. 'Permitting' includes rostering that made compliance impossible.
The cheapest infringement is the one the roster never creates. Run planned work through the capacity planner before it is assigned, and reconcile against tacho downloads after.