The Senior Traffic Commissioner (“STC”), Richard Turfitt, is calling on commercial vehicle operators, professional drivers, trade associations and other stakeholders to provide their views on proposed revisions to Statutory Document No. 6 ‘Vocational Driver Conduct’, which guides the Traffic Commissioners’ approach to the regulation of drivers of heavy goods vehicles and passenger carrying vehicles.

The traffic commissioners previously reviewed their approach to the regulation of vocational driver conduct in 2015 and 2019, but the Statutory Document has remained largely unchanged since that time.

On 17 April 2025, the STC launched a 6-week consultation to seek feedback from industry on proposed changes to Statutory Document No. 6, which include:

• clarifying the legislation that applies when traffic commissioners are considering the conduct of vocational drivers;
• outlining the approach traffic commissioners will take when an operator notifies that a driver has failed a company drink or drugs test;
• setting out the requirement for hearings and decisions to be transparent with clear reasons provided;
• identifying which cases may be suitable for a virtual hearing;
• clarifying that the starting points and case examples are non-binding on the presiding commissioner, who retains full discretion in their decision-making;
• consolidating the different types of conduct and offences listed in the starting points annex to make them easier to interpret;
• removal of the clause that set out that a driver who received a community penalty from a court should be called to a hearing (this has been removed to ensure that those drivers who received a community order because they are unable to pay a fine are not treated unfairly);
• removal of the starting point related to multiple CU80 offences for mobile phone offences (this reflects the previous change in the law to increase the standard penalty to six points meaning that multiple offences are likely to lead to a disqualification of a driver’s entitlements);
• revision of the disqualification thresholds to recognise that a longer ban is typically imposed for more serious offending;
• identification of additional negative and positive features which can form part of the risk assessment of a driver’s fitness;
• adding further case examples to the Annex to provide additional scenarios which explain how a traffic commissioner may use their discretion.

In addition to feedback on the Statutory Document, the consultation also seeks views on how to raise the profile of traffic commissioners with the professional drivers they regulate.

You can read more about the consultation here: Review of the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Document: Vocational Driver Conduct - GOV.UK and the draft revised Statutory Document can be found here: Review of the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Document: Vocational Driver Conduct - GOV.UK

The consultation runs until 29 May 2025.