{"id":4558,"date":"2019-01-20T10:48:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T10:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/?p=4558"},"modified":"2025-04-02T13:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T12:17:26","slug":"van-driving-keeping-to-the-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/van-driving-keeping-to-the-rules","title":{"rendered":"Driving a van and keeping to the rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re a van driver on the roads you have a lot to deal with. The weather, your cargo, other drivers being frustrating. One thing you don\u2019t want to have to deal with is legal trouble. In the UK over 60% of business trips are done in a car or van<\/a>. Across the miles and miles of roads in the country there are laws to follow. However, it\u2019s not just the rules of the road. Your van is your business, or you\u2019re part of a business. There are health and safety issues to worry about, such as Duty of Care. You\u2019ll need to know certain things to avoid getting caught out. Things such as:<\/p>\n

Know the rules and the consequences for breaking them<\/h2>\n

Passing your driver\u2019s test means you\u2019ll know how the law works, at least at the time. Laws change and you should try and keep up with them. For older drivers you can drive a van no problem, but for younger drivers a simple car licence isn\u2019t enough. Younger drivers need to pass additional tests if they want to drive a van or tow a trailer.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the Duty of Care laws<\/a> that can result in fines.\u00a0 The maximum a company can be fined for this is \u00a310 million, depending on their size. Even smaller companies (Of around a \u00a32 million turnover) can be fined around half a million, more than enough to kill one. This can come about in various ways, road accidents or crime, low vehicle maintenance or even incorrect loading methods. You could end up in the firing line for such an incident. However there are easy things that can minimise problems, such as:<\/p>\n

Obeying mobile phone rules<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve all heard that using your phone while driving can lead to accidents on the road. This of course would make it illegal to do so. It\u2019s not just answering or making calls, but reading texts or emails is also not allowed. Also, you aren\u2019t safe from being stopped if you\u2019re stopped at traffic lights or in a traffic jam. Unless you have a hands-free system, just keep the phone out of reach or turned off.<\/p>\n

The penalties for doing this have gone up over the years<\/a>. Currently, if you\u2019re caught on your phone you could get 6 points on your licence and a fine of 200 quid. If you only passed your test 2 years or less until getting caught you\u2019ll just lose your licence. If you\u2019re reading texts and can\u2019t see the road properly, that\u2019s still 3 points. However, the police can take you to court where you can get a driving ban or a \u00a31000 fine.<\/p>\n

Get some insurance<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re setting up a transporter business or already have one with a fleet of vehicles you probably already know this. However, it\u2019s still important to make sure every vehicle has the right policy as well as the right insurance for your business. A relatively simple idea but a hugely important thing to do because you can have the vehicle taken off of you and the business closed down. This leads onto the next point:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let people borrow the van<\/h2>\n

A lot of car insurance policies allow for other people to drive it. A proper van insurance policy is for one person, the owner. It\u2019s usually specific to the person who has business with the van and only with that specific van. Because of this unless you\u2019re covered in another way it\u2019s probably not best to offer to drive someone else\u2019s vehicle. It\u2019s also definitely not a good idea to let a friend drive it, unless they also have proper coverage for driving van. Unless you follow these rules is followed and they damage the van the insurance won\u2019t pay out and you\u2019ll be responsible for the claim. It\u2019s also a good idea to see if there are any issues with using a company van for personal use.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s enough to worry about when driving, and the laws are quite easy to not break. The penalties are tough if you are caught breaking them, The simple advice is that if a rule is easy to follow, don\u2019t take chances. With your van in no doubt good hands start getting jobs for it now on DeliveryQuoteCompare.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re a van driver on the roads you have a lot to deal with. The weather, your cargo, other drivers being frustrating. One thing you don\u2019t want to have to deal with is legal trouble. In the UK over 60% of business trips are done in a car or van. Across the miles and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[434,36,41,114,43,34,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4558"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6175,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4558\/revisions\/6175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deliveryquotecompare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}