Traffic offences committed with company vehicles
In practice, companies face traffic offences committed by staff members or directors driving a company vehicle. This article addresses the situation in which a vehicle belonging to a company, and registered in that company’s name, is involved in a traffic offence committed by an employee or a person responsible within the company.
The law distinguishes between an employer who is a natural person (Article 67bis of the Road Traffic Act) and an employer who is a legal entity (Article 67ter of the Road Traffic Act).
The employer is a legal entity
When the employer is a legal entity, such as a private limited company or public limited company, the offence can never be committed by the legal entity itself. This is because the legislature seeks to promote road safety and wishes to prevent legal entities from being misused to systematically shift traffic offences onto the legal entity, allowing the natural persons who actually committed the offences to escape liability.
Article 67ter of the Road Traffic Act therefore requires the natural persons representing that legal entity, namely its managers or directors, to state within fifteen days of receiving the official report and reply form who was driving at the time of the offence. If they do not know the driver’s identity, they must provide the identity of the person normally responsible for the vehicle.
If the person responsible for the vehicle is named on the reply form but was not the actual driver at the time of the facts, that person must also identify the driver within fifteen days. This information must always be provided within fifteen days from the date on which the request for information attached to the copy of the official report was sent.
If representatives of a legal entity fail to comply with Article 67ter of the Road Traffic Act, they risk a severe penalty: a minimum fine of EUR 1,600.00, meaning a fine of EUR 200.00 to EUR 4,000.00 multiplied by eight additional décimes, or imprisonment from a minimum of fifteen days up to six months, or both penalties (Article 29ter of the Road Traffic Act).
Because the actual offender, who is a natural person, must be identified, Article 67ter of the Road Traffic Act states that representatives of legal entities must take “the necessary measures” to meet this obligation. But what exactly do all of those necessary measures look like? The law does not specify this.
The legal entity is therefore free to decide which measures to take. In practice, companies often use a journey log or an Excel spreadsheet in which the employer records who is driving which vehicle and when. Drivers may also record the time at which they take over a vehicle from a previous driver, for example.
The employer is a natural person
When the business is operated by a natural person, the situation is simpler. The general rule in Article 67bis of the Road Traffic Act then applies.
- If the driver is identified when the offence is recorded, there is no issue: the identified driver will be fined.
- If the driver is not identified when the offence is recorded, it is presumed that the offence was committed by the holder of the vehicle’s registration plate.
This presumption of guilt can be rebutted. The natural person only needs to prove that they were not driving the vehicle at the time of the facts. However, it is often very difficult to prove that you were not driving a vehicle, unless you can provide holiday photographs or prove that you were at work, for instance. Proof that someone else, such as an employee, was driving your vehicle automatically proves that you could not have been the driver.
There is no duty to provide information comparable to the duty that applies to offences committed with vehicles registered in the name of legal entities when an offence concerns a vehicle registered in the name of a natural person. This is because there is no issue of impunity: there is always a physical person who can be held accountable.
A sole trader is therefore not obliged to take the necessary measures to identify the correct driver, unlike legal entities. Nevertheless, sole traders are strongly advised always to know which employee drove which vehicle and when. Otherwise, the employer may have to bear the cost of offences committed by employees using a vehicle registered in the sole trader’s name.