Aknowledgement to Route One magazine.
Welsh Traffic Commissoner Nick Jones has made it plain that the "dry hiring" of vehicles, where it is claimed the hirer of the vehicle is the operator IS illegal.
The licence held by Caldicot based Go Stretch has been revoked, in addition the ommisioner has disqualified directors Julie & Scott Demaret from holding such a licence for a priod of five years and held that Julie Demaret had lost her repute as transport manager.
The commissioner sais that "dry hiring" was a ruse which had on occasion been attempted by operators whereby they claimed that they were not operating a vehicle as they hired it out, in the same way that any ordinary car hire company did.
Theoretically it was possible to hire a passenger carrying vehicle without the requirements for an O-licence and under certain circumstances a hire arrangement might not be illegal.
However, it was clear that a business which ran limousines on the basis of hiring out vehicles with the suggestion that the hirer was the operator, was a fiction which did not stand up to even the cursory scrutiny.
Theoretically, an individual who hired a vehicle and thereby operated at the invitation of companies like go Stretch would be committing a criminal offence. In practice, it was most unlikely that they would be prosecuted as they have been duped by the so-called hire company. Nevertheless, if Go Stretch did hire out a vehicle to someone else to operate then it would be aiding abetting,counselling and procuring the commission of the offence of operating without an O-licence. The ruse or fiction of "dry hiring" which had been used by some unlicensed operators was illegal.
The article does then goes on to discuss associated matters and of course the poor bleating that " the law doesn't suit us"
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