Posted: Thursday, 07 May 2015
UK businesses with company vehicles can take comfort in knowing that the vast majority of their drivers will work their entire careers without making questionable decisions behind the wheel. However, employers can never take that for granted. Drivers do all sorts of strange things when they find themselves facing potential penalties and fines. Their actions can be even more bizarre when faced with losing a driving licence. A good case in point is that of a Lincolnshire man who claimed his car had been cloned.
News reports say that the man, who is a pensioner living alone, was caught by a speed camera early last year doing 80 mph in a 70 mph zone. Police contacted the man only to be told that neither the car nor its owner had been on the road in question in years. Upon further inquiry, the man told police that someone must have cloned his car.
Police visited the man's residence to compare his vehicle to video footage. The Lincolnshire Echo reports that they found several identifying characteristics confirming that the car in the video was the one they were examining in person. The owner eventually admitted to the speeding offence and was penalised accordingly. Unfortunately, it did not end there. The court recently found him guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice and sentenced him to two months in jail.
So what prompted the man to make up his car-cloning tale? He had already accumulated six points on his driving licence and was afraid of a ban for speeding. He apparently relies on his car to get him around, being that he lives alone and his family is in Newark. His story is evidence that drivers will go to great lengths to cover up their poor decisions while behind the wheel.
We fully understand that the Lincolnshire driver is by no means a career criminal who needs to be taken off the streets. He is a pensioner who made a series of foolish mistakes that ultimately landed him behind the bars of a prison cell. Nevertheless, those same mistakes could just as easily have jeopardised an employer had the man been younger and driving professionally.
Because an employee tells you he/she has a clean driving licence and no record does not necessarily mean it is true. It is for this reason that we routinely recommend businesses with company vehicles undertake regular licence checks of their drivers – just in case anything is amiss. In the likely event that your drivers all have clean records, the costs incurred from license checks is money well spent. In rare cases where a licence check does reveal an unqualified driver, the services we provide could save you and your company a tremendous amount of trouble.
Fleet Licence Check works with companies of all sizes to ensure they stay abreast of all of the drivers who work for them. We can help you as well.