HGV walkaround checks. What a lorry driver checks, and what ends up on the report.

By Scott Woodfield, who builds HGVault. Last checked 7 November 2026.

A walkaround check is the driver’s look over the whole combination before it leaves the yard, worked through DVSA’s 27 items for lorries. Anything wrong goes on a written report with the registration, the date, the defect, the driver’s own assessment of it, their name and who they told. A clean check is written up as nil. Most of what makes a lorry check harder than a van check sits behind the cab, where the unit stops and the trailer starts.

In brief

• DVSA’s HGV list has 27 items, nine from the cab and eighteen walking round. Several of the outside ones only exist because something’s coupled on behind.
• Swap trailers three times in a shift and each trailer gets its own check.
• Whoever tows a trailer answers for its roadworthiness, even when a customer or a rental firm owns it.
• A report with defects on it is part of the maintenance record and is kept for at least 15 months, with the repair written against it.

What makes a lorry walkaround different?

Mostly the trailer, and the join. DVSA’s page for lorry drivers, last updated in September 2023, numbers 27 items. Nine are checked from the cab and eighteen outside, and four of the outside ones (brake lines, electrical connections, coupling security and the load) are about whatever’s on the fifth wheel or the drawbar. The Guide to maintaining roadworthiness wants the check to cover the whole vehicle or combination, everything that can be looked at safely without a workshop. Where trailers change during the day, each one gets checked.

At least one check is needed in every 24 hours the lorry is in service. The April 2025 edition of the guide added that vehicles on arduous or off-road work may need more than one, with attention on the parts likely to take damage before they go back on the road. A lorry used on site work, such as a tipper on a muddy groundworks job, is walked round again before it leaves the site, wheels and tyres especially. A safety defect found then keeps it off the road until it’s repaired.

The check can be handed to a responsible person other than the driver, the yard shunter on an early start for instance. The driver taking the lorry still needs to see evidence that it was done and that the vehicle is free of safety defects.

Inside the cab

Mirrors and cameras, wipers and washers, the horn, the steering and the seat belts are checked as on any heavy vehicle. These are the cab items that are shaped by the lorry.

• Brakes and air build-up. Air builds up and the warning works, there are no leaks, the footwell’s clear and the pedal has no excessive side play or missing tread. The service brake has to work the trailer brakes as well as the tractor’s, and the tractor’s parking brake has to hold.
• Warning lights. DVSA names the engine warning, the emissions system, ABS and EBS.
• Height marker. It has to show the height of the lorry as it stands today. Wind the fifth wheel up, or load, unload or reload the trailer, and the figure can change. The guide says anything over 3 metres high must display an overall height indicator in the cab, measured where necessary.
• Cab, doors and steps. Cab mountings and tilt devices secure, doors that shut and stay shut, steps safe to stand on. This one joined the list in April 2023, at the same time as the high voltage cut-off switch and alternative fuel isolation for electric and gas lorries.

Walking round the unit and trailer

DVSA’s own tip earns its place. After the first brake test, leave the engine running so the pressure keeps building, and leaks are easier to hear as you go round. With nobody to stand at the back and watch the stop lamps, the guide accepts a brake pedal application tool.

Air lines, electrics and the ISO lead

Couplings free of debris and in the right place, no leaks, no damage or wear on the brake lines, and a trailer parking brake that works. Visible wiring insulated and routed where it won’t snag, trailer electrical couplings connected securely, switches working.

The ISO 7638 lead deserves a line of its own. For a trailer with electronic braking, connecting it with that lead is a legal requirement, and the guide says the lead must be inspected for damage and correctly connected as part of the walkaround. Without it the trailer’s EBS doesn’t work, and nor do the anti-lock braking, roll stability and load sensing that rely on it. A fault with the lead means the trailer isn’t used until it’s fixed. DVSA’s example defect report for goods vehicles names the ISO cable on its electrical connections line.

Coupling

Is the trailer located correctly in the fifth wheel or coupling, and are the secondary locking devices where they should be? Depending on the make, that’s a dog clip on a chain, a spring-loaded pin or a lever dropped behind the handle, the examples DVSA’s HGV inspection manual gives. Getting down and looking is the only way to answer it.

Body, guards and spray suppression

Trailer doors secure when shut, body panels on unit and trailer not about to come off, landing legs secure and not likely to drop on the move, sideguards and rear under-run guards fitted where required and undamaged. Where spray suppression flaps are required, they’re fitted, secure, undamaged and clear of mud and debris. On site work that last one clogs up fast.

Tyres and wheels

At least 1mm of tread, inflated correctly, no deep cuts in the sidewall, no cord showing anywhere, nothing jammed between the twins, and wheel nut indicators, where fitted, still lined up. Every trailer axle gets the same look as the drive axle.

The load

The load mustn’t move or look likely to, and it has to be held with the right kind of securing for what it is. A driver who isn’t happy with it goes to whoever’s in charge of vehicle safety, who gets a competent person to assess it and has it reloaded or resecured if necessary.

Plenty of drivers never load their own trailer. DVSA’s load securing guidance still expects them to check the load is secure before setting off if they can, to ask the consignor for the load plan if there is one, and not to go if they have doubts. Restraints want checking again along the way, because straps and chains lose tension and loads like sand or aggregate settle, and again after harsh braking or a swerve. For the operator the guidance is blunt. You must support a driver who raises a concern about the load, and you must not pressure them into taking the vehicle out.

Lights, plates and markings

Marker lights fitted and working, side reflectors present and the right colour, conspicuity markings visible and fastened, number plate clean and correctly spaced. On dangerous goods work the hazard information panels have to show the right information for the load. Item 27 is the catch-all for loading or specialised equipment on that vehicle, so a lorry with a tail lift, a crane or a fridge unit needs that kit on its check sheet.

Who checks a trailer you don’t own?

You do, if you’re pulling it. The guide puts a trailer’s roadworthiness on the user of the towing vehicle, whoever owns it, and for traction-only work it spells out the split. The traction operator does the walkaround and records any defects and how they were put right before use. It should also have access to the trailer’s inspection interval, its current safety inspection reports with brake tests, its MOT certificate and its EBPMS report where there is one, with a contract or written agreement with the owner behind it. Where those trailers aren’t on your own inspection frequency, the guide’s default is no more than 13 weeks between inspections.

Non-UK trailers get one more rule. If the operator or transport manager can’t satisfy themselves a trailer has been adequately maintained, it must not be used. A prohibition on a trailer you’re using is yours to deal with as well, by getting it removed or telling the owner it’s been issued. Our guide to trailer safety inspections covers the owner’s side of the paperwork.

What goes on the defect report?

The registration or identification mark, the date, the defect or symptoms, the driver’s assessment of it (dangerous, say), the driver’s name and who it was reported to. DVSA asks for a form that lists the items checked, with nil written when nothing’s wrong.

DVSA’s example report for goods vehicles adds what a lorry needs. There’s a box for the trailer number beside the vehicle, an odometer reading, and a height marker line that asks for the running height. The items that apply to the combination, which are the brake lines, coupling security and electrical connections, are starred.

Then it’s the office’s turn. The report goes to someone with the authority to take the lorry out of service, and is finished off with the assessment, the repair, who did it and the date. A report listing defects is part of the vehicle’s maintenance record and is kept for at least 15 months. The guide recommends keeping nil reports for at least 3 months, as they’re the easiest proof the checks are being done. Drivers on a tachograph record the walkaround, and any repairs that go with it, as other work.

Defects found on the road

These count too. The driver finds a safe place to stop, assesses the defect and reports it, and a dangerous one is fixed before the lorry carries on. DVSA’s page is plain about what’s at stake for the driver, since using an HGV in a dangerous condition can bring an unlimited fine and a prison sentence. An examiner can ask for the walkaround record at a roadside check, and a defect they think the daily check should have caught can get the prohibition S marked, as a significant failure of roadworthiness compliance.

A driver who fails to do an adequate walkaround can be called to a driver conduct hearing by the traffic commissioner, and can lose their vocational licence. Where English isn’t a driver’s first language, the guide says the operator must provide extra translation or training. DVSA publishes the HGV walkaround page itself in more than 20 other languages, Polish and Romanian among them.

Checking the checks

A ticked box proves somebody ticked it. Question 5a of DVSA’s maintenance investigation asks whether walkarounds are effective, and the test is whether your inspection sheets keep finding things a driver should have reported with no defect report to match. Occasional cases are marked mostly satisfactory. A regular pattern is unsatisfactory, and clear evidence that checks aren’t done goes to the traffic commissioner.

The guide suggests ways to catch it before an examiner does. Someone competent can re-examine lorries as they leave or come back to the operating centre and compare what they find with the driver’s report, or the inspector can note at each safety inspection which defects the driver should have spotted. Tachograph analysis will show how long walkarounds really take. Our guide to the maintenance investigation for goods vehicle operators goes through question 5a and the rest of the visit.

In HGVault each lorry and each trailer has its own QR tag, and the driver’s phone opens that vehicle’s own check list, with the coupling and the load on a lorry’s. A defect opens a workshop job, and DVSA readiness flags walkarounds that are too quick or always clear. There’s more on walkaround checks, or open the walkthrough and follow a check from the driver’s phone to the workshop.

Sources

• GOV.UK (DVSA), Carry out HGV daily walkaround checks
• GOV.UK (DVSA), Guide to maintaining roadworthiness
• GOV.UK (DVSA), Guide to maintaining roadworthiness, publication page and change history
• GOV.UK (DVSA), Example of a driver’s vehicle defect report (goods vehicles)
• GOV.UK (DVSA), Securing loads on HGVs and goods vehicles, responsibility for load security
• GOV.UK (DVSA), Maintenance investigations, questions
• GOV.UK (DVSA), MOT inspection manual for HGVs