Maintenance & inspection
What is roadworthiness?
Roadworthiness is the condition of a vehicle being fit and serviceable for use on the road. Keeping vehicles roadworthy at all times, not only at inspection, is a core operator licence undertaking.
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<img src="https://fleetoptix.co.uk/glossary/roadworthiness/diagram.svg" alt="roadworthiness — diagram from FleetOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://fleetoptix.co.uk/glossary/roadworthiness">What is roadworthiness?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://fleetoptix.co.uk">FleetOptix</a>
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</figure>The obligation is continuous. A vehicle that passed its inspection last week and has a defect today is not roadworthy today, which is why the driver check and the defect reporting route matter as much as the workshop schedule.
It covers the trailer as well as the unit, and it covers load security and anything else that makes the vehicle unsafe in use rather than only its mechanical state.
Evidencing it is a matter of showing an unbroken system rather than a good result on one day: planned inspections, daily checks, defects raised and closed, and someone reviewing whether the pattern is getting worse.
What goes wrong in practice
- Treating the annual test as the standard, when it is a single snapshot and the duty runs every day between them.
- A known defect deferred to the next scheduled inspection because the vehicle is needed.
- Trailers maintained less rigorously than units, despite carrying the same duty.