It seems that we were too premature in our congratulations of the TRAN committees work in the Professional Drivers Qualifications. This legislation lays out the basis for providing training programmes for professional drivers, including importantly the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (Driver CPC) qualification for professional bus, coach and lorry drivers. We thought that the current legislation was a bit light on road safety and absent of acknowledgement of requiring drivers to understand the needs of cyclists and pedestrians.

The updated text looks like it will mention cycling and pedestrians to be taken into account within training procedures for all lorry, bus and coach drivers. This is all good news and we very much welcomed it.

However! We have also learned (thanks to colleagues at ETSC) that there has been the addition of an amendment that could lead to the exemption of drivers from the requirements for training as long as they stay within a 100km radius of their base. The amendment says the exemption should only apply to workers whose ‘principal activity’ is ‘not driving’. For us this sounds very vague, and very much open to possible abuses. If as an employer I can employ a ‘handyman’ who also happens to have a C driving license, he can now legally drive my large truck with only his C driving license and no CPC driving regulations! If a driver is stopped by the police without CPC qualifications can he claim not to have driving as his principle work?

Professional drivers invest considerable time, money and effort in acquiring their CPC driving qualifications and if this text were to stand it could seriously undermine it with less qualified (lower paid) drivers now being employed to do the work of those who have obtained their full qualifications.

This qualification tells employers, public authorities and other road users that this driver is up to date with all current traffic, transport, and vehicle conditions, and will also (in future) require knowledge of cycling, pedestrian, and urban safety issues. It is supposed to promote confidence amongst road users and allow authorities to regulate what skilled professional drivers have to know. This should not be undermined, encourage loopholes or erode confidence in what is a well-functioning system of life-long training and education for a huge number of drivers.

Best case scenario; the exemption would lead to some occasional workers who also happen to have a C driving license being asked to get behind the wheel of lorries or buses even if they haven’t driven such a vehicle for years or updated their qualifications to reflect new technologies, changed road rules or modern safety standards.

Worst case scenario; this could lead to potentially tens of thousands of large vehicles being driven by drivers lacking experience and full professional training, and the CPC system being undermined by the establishment of an unregulated, semi-illegal labour market.

We would ask all TRAN committee Members in the Parliament and Council representatives that are currently engaged in discussions over the text think about the consequences of what seems rather loose language that could have serious ramifications for road safety in urban areas and for the integrity of this important cross border qualification system.