The deadline for many professional drivers to complete their Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) training is 9 September 2024.
IOC sub-group chair for Road Safety, Chris Floyd comments, “Driver CPC is one of the few ways the Transport Sector is mandated to engage with its drivers of commercial vehicles and September of 2024 is expected to be another pinch point for training. Every year, certain parts of the sector leave training to the last possible moment and, every five years, that organisational procrastination compounds into a significant risk to individual businesses and the industry as a whole. - I implore you to do two things; firstly, check your position now for September 2024. With the summer annual leave, an Olympic Games and a European Football Championship the summer will feel very brief and before you know it your legally available pool of drivers could be significantly reduced.
Secondly, if you don’t already do so, consider alleviating this regular, self-imposed panic by implementing regular CPC sessions for all your drivers. Ask yourself, are my drivers performing to a high standard? Does your organisation accept simply scraping to 35hrs of training over five years and then nothing further? There might just be a correlation. - Better trained drivers are, unsurprisingly, better drivers and you’ll never need worry about a CPC deadline again.”
DVSA statement
To make sure your drivers can find training in time, we are asking operators to encourage drivers whose Driver CPC runs out this September to check that they have completed 35 hours well before the 9 September deadline.
Why is demand so high for training every 5 years? 2024 is the 15-year anniversary of Driver CPC for lorry drivers. When it was first introduced all lorry drivers had to get their driver qualification card by September 9, 2014. This means that many current cards will run out at the same time. So, every 5 years there are lots of drivers trying to complete their 35 hours of training at the same time. Data shows that lots of drivers leave their training until the last 6 months. In 2019, there were, on average, 5 times more training hours done a month compared to the same time in the previous year
What happens if your drivers miss their training deadline - They cannot drive professionally until they finish their training, and they could be fined up to £1,000 for driving professionally without having a Driver CPC.
Checking your drivers’ training - Drivers can check the numbers of hours they have done towards their Driver CPC and see what the deadline is to complete it by. Drivers can share this information with operators, but we are not able to give you direct access as the information is owned by the driver.
