ADR photo cards

Fraser Talbot from the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) explained pending changes to ADR certificates. Certificates will now be issued by the SQA on behalf of the Department for Transport instead of the DVLA. Although the format will change from paper to a photo card, the good news is that there will be no additional cost. Drivers will simply have to produce a passport-style photo when attending a refresher course. It is expected that this will take place in October.

Fire extinguisher failures

Terry Laker of the Health and Safety Executive spoke about the carriage of dangerous goods and road enforcement. He was particularly concerned that historically, hauliers are continuing to make the same mistakes and highlighted the high percentage of fire extinguisher failures.

Changes to OCRS

The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency’s (VOSA) Matt Barker was on hand to talk about recent changes to the Operator Compliance Risk Score (OCRS) system. Key changes include:-

Targeting priorities

Points

OCRS bands

Timescales of point allocation for prosecution

Removal of predictive scoring

Weighting factor according to age of event

Larger data sets calculated more frequently

Straight-to-red for prosecutions and most serious infringement

New events included

Matt explained that the changes have been designed to help examiners to target non-compliant hauliers.

www.vosa.gov.uk

www.fta.co.uk