Lorry and trailer walkaround checks on the phone. Scan the tag and the right list opens.

At ten to five in the morning a driver with a clipboard and a biro is not doing their best work. The sheet gets ticked in the cab, the trailer gets a glance on the way past, and the defect book lives in the door pocket until somebody asks for it. GOV.UK puts the responsibility plainly: the driver makes sure the vehicle is safe to drive, and the check comes before it goes out.

What DVSA expects

DVSA’s guidance on daily HGV walkaround checks runs from the cab to the back of the trailer. In the cab: the view out and the mirrors or cameras, wipers and washers, warning lights and gauges, steering, horn, brakes and air build-up, the height marker, belts, and cab security, doors and steps. Outside: lights, leaks, body and door security with landing legs, sideguards and rear under-run, the battery, AdBlue, exhaust smoke, spray suppression, tyres and wheel fixings, trailer brake lines and electrical connections, coupling security with the fifth wheel and secondary locks, load security, the number plate, reflectors, and markings including hazard panels for dangerous goods. Defects are reported in writing to whoever deals with them in your firm, and a check that finds nothing is recorded as nil. A dangerous defect is fixed before the vehicle goes any further.

DVSA’s Guide to maintaining roadworthiness adds that a walkaround is done every day before the vehicle is used on the road, that it covers the whole vehicle or combination, and that whoever does it is trained and competent. It calls keeping nil reports good practice and suggests holding them for at least three months. Driver defect reports themselves are kept for at least 15 months.

A list for each vehicle

Every lorry, van and trailer has its own QR tag. The driver scans it, types their 4-digit ID and the phone opens that vehicle: whether it is on the road or VOR, the defects open on it and what is due. Each vehicle type has its own list, with a line under every item saying what to look for, and each item is OK, Defect or N/A. Kit a vehicle does not have, such as a tail lift, a crane or a fifth wheel, can be set as not fitted so nobody is asked about it every morning. Safety items such as tyres, brakes and air, steering and lights can never be set that way.

A trailer has its own tag and its own list, starting with the coupling: fifth wheel jaws locked and the pin in, or the drawbar and eye secure, then a tug test. After that come the air lines and electrical connections, the trailer brakes and park brake, landing legs fully raised with the handle stowed, the number plate matching the unit, and the body. Swap trailers at a drop yard and the driver scans the trailer they have just picked up, so the check goes on that trailer’s record.

Defects go straight to the workshop

Mark an item as a defect and the phone asks what is wrong and whether the vehicle is safe to drive. The defect opens a workshop job and joins the outstanding defects list, where it stays until it is put right and signed off. A lorry reported not safe goes to the top of the dashboard as Reported not safe to use until someone trained has checked it, and DVSA readiness flags it if it is used before then.

From the same tag a driver can report a defect on its own, log fuel and AdBlue, and put in the mileage. That is all a driver’s ID can do. Items a technician wants watched at the next check can be sent to the walkaround as directed checks, so the driver is asked about that leaking air tank by name.

Checks that really took place

Set the shortest time a check may take and the phone will not send one any sooner. The server times each check itself from the moment the form opened, so a check rattled off in forty seconds in the canteen shows as short. A check done with no signal is kept on the phone, timed there, and sent the moment the phone finds signal.

The check board shows every vehicle and every driver for today or any day: checked or not, by whom, when and how long it took. A lorry that took fuel or had a defect reported that day with no check against it shows as Not checked.

Gate checks and missed defects

A supervisor can do a gate check on a vehicle as it leaves. When a gate check, a safety inspection or a roadside check finds a defect a driver should have spotted, HGVault looks back through the walkarounds since the item was last known to be sound and records each one that passed it, against the driver. A suspicion about who skims the check becomes names and dates you can train from.

How it feeds the self-check

Driver defect reporting is section 5 of DVSA’s maintenance investigation questions. Safety inspections that keep finding defects a driver should have reported, with no matching report, lead to an unsatisfactory answer. The self-check sets the defects drivers found against those found at inspection, so you see the pattern before an examiner does. Our guide to HGV walkaround checks goes through what a good check looks like.