Gate checks and missed defect tracking. Before an examiner finds them.

Most operators have a driver whose walkaround is over before the kettle boils and finds nothing, week after week. Usually you know who it is. What you rarely have is the evidence: which defects that driver passed, on which days, and whether the problem is one person or a gap in how everyone was trained.

What DVSA expects

DVSA’s Guide to maintaining roadworthiness treats walkaround checks as a core part of the maintenance system and expects them to be monitored all the time, not taken on trust. It suggests two methods. One is to have a competent member of staff, or a visiting agent, re-examine vehicles as they leave or come back to the yard and compare what they find with the driver’s defect reports. The other is for the inspecting technician to note defects a driver should have found, then go back through the driver reports to work out why they were missed. The guide expects a risk-based approach, with more checking where problems show up, findings written down by people trained to do it, issues talked through with the staff involved, and follow-up actions kept on file.

The examiner makes the same comparison. Under question 5 of DVSA’s maintenance investigation questions, an operator whose safety inspections regularly find defects a driver should have reported, with no driver report behind them, is heading for an unsatisfactory mark. Driver-related prohibitions count against you there too. The guide also notes that Traffic Commissioners can take action against a driver who does not complete an adequate walkaround check.

Gate checks

A supervisor scans the vehicle’s QR tag and chooses Gate check. It reuses the same items as the driver’s walkaround, so the two can be compared item by item. Results include fails and advisories. An advisory picks up things like the operator licence disc not being on display, which would not stop the vehicle but would not impress an examiner either.

Planted tags

Supervisors can plant tags on a vehicle to test whether drivers find them. It is a fair test: the tag is either reported on the next walkaround or it is not. Anything a recent gate check found is also carried onto the next walkaround on that vehicle as a directed check, so the driver is asked about it by name.

Missed defect tracking

When a safety inspection, a gate check, a roadside encounter or the office finds a defect on an item a driver should spot, PSVault looks back at the walkarounds on that vehicle since the item was last confirmed sound. The fleet sets how far back it looks. Every walkaround in that window that marked the item OK is recorded as missed, against that driver.

The defect then shows it plainly, for example marked OK on 3 walkarounds before this, with the drivers’ names and the dates. The same misses appear on each driver’s record. This is the second method in DVSA’s guide, done automatically each time one of those finds a defect, rather than when someone has a spare afternoon.

The per-driver view

Pick a driver and a period and PSVault shows:

• checks done
• defect rate
• median check time
• short checks, finished under the minimum check time
• checks where every item was marked OK
• missed defects
• gate check disagreements, where a gate check found what the driver passed

None of those numbers proves much on its own. A driver with a low defect rate may simply have the newest coach. Put together, they point to the conversations worth having. A short median time, every item OK on almost every check and two missed tyre defects is a training need. The fleet view shows who needs training, so you can tell whether it is one or two people or something wider.

Training and the paper trail

DVSA’s guide expects drivers to have their responsibilities in writing and to be trained to report defects, and it expects monitoring findings to be acted on and kept. The per-driver view tells you who to start with and what to cover. When you run the next quarter’s figures, you can see whether the training worked.

How it feeds the self-check

The maintenance investigation self-check brings gate checks, walkaround coverage and defects found by drivers compared with those found at inspection into its suggested answer on driver defect reporting. The office confirms or changes the answer and signs it. Missed defect tracking also feeds the driver defect report answer in the SIPCAT analysis on the prohibitions and investigations page. For the rules behind the walkaround, read our guide to PSV walkaround checks.