Key points
- Nored Transport of Spalding lost its licence for 6 HGVs and 3 trailers. The traffic commissioner found weak management control over drivers engaged as self-employed or limited company contractors.
- DVSA found drivers’ hours offences, including one day when a driver exceeded the daily limit by 10 hours 27 minutes.
- The commissioner did not rule on the drivers’ tax status. The issue was control: the operator remains responsible, however drivers are engaged.
- The director told the inquiry that contract margins left “not enough profit” to retain drivers properly.
We first reported the case in August, when the self-employed driver model contributed to the haulier’s downfall. The full written decision of Eastern traffic commissioner Richard Turfitt shows how the problems built up, and what other operators can learn from it.
How it started
On 9 April 2025, DVSA stopped one of the company’s trucks. The driver told the examiner that the vehicle belonged to Nored Transport but that he was in control, working as a self-employed driver who invoiced the operator. He had no valid driver CPC card and received a fixed penalty.
The company told DVSA that its drivers were engaged “strictly on a self-employed or limited company contractor basis”, a model it said accountants had validated in 2022. It said drivers paid their own tax and could decline work or work for others.
A traffic examiner then found a lack of management control, inadequate load security training and inadequate disciplinary procedures.
What went wrong
At a preliminary hearing in March 2026, DVSA presented drivers’ hours offences. One driver exceeded the 4.5-hour driving limit three times in December 2025. Another had five offences, including exceeding the daily driving limit by 10 hours 27 minutes on a single day and two cases of insufficient daily rest. Driving licence checks were missing for some months.
Maintenance records were also incomplete. One truck went more than 15 weeks without a safety inspection, and some brake tests had no printouts. The operator sent much of its evidence after the deadline.
At the public inquiry in July, the director and transport manager said he had been very busy and that the operator’s margins were such that there was “not enough profit in the negotiated contracts” to retain drivers properly. Some drivers left rather than accept employment terms.
The licence was revoked from 9 July 2026. The transport manager kept his CPC, but his repute was found “severely tarnished”.
5 lessons for operators
1. Control does not depend on the contract. The commissioner did not decide whether the drivers were employees. His concern was that “the behaviour of the drivers described by the operator risked the impression that they thought they could be in control.” The operator’s licence holds the operator responsible for drivers’ hours, vehicle condition and loads, whatever the drivers’ tax status.
2. Check CPC and driving licences for every driver. The case started with a driver without a valid CPC card. Regular licence checks were missing for several drivers.
3. Monitor drivers’ hours and act on infringements. Downloading tachograph data is not enough. Operators need a disciplinary process that drivers actually follow, including contractors.
4. Working time rules apply to self-employed drivers too. Self-employed drivers have been covered by the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations since May 2012, and must keep their own working time records for two years, according to government guidance.
5. A transport manager who is overruled puts their own repute at risk. “Where a Transport Manager finds himself overridden, then he can expect his repute to be put at issue,” the commissioner wrote.
A warning for low-margin operators
The commissioner wrote that “other responsible operators will no doubt read their names out of concern”. The case shows that engaging drivers through limited companies does not move compliance risk away from the licence holder.
Other recent decisions point the same way. Operators have lost licences for faking maintenance records and for relying on a customer for key compliance functions. In each case, the traffic commissioner looked at who was really in control.
