Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Act 1989

11 Sanctions for operating outside licence area or for breach of licence conditions

(1) The Secretary of State may, subject to subsection (2) below, at any time revoke or suspend an operator’s licence on the ground that—

(a) the licence holder’s operations have extended beyond the area in which the licence authorised him to operate, or

(b) there has been a breach of any condition of the licence.

(2) The Secretary of State shall not revoke or suspend a licence for breach of a condition unless he is satisfied that owing to—

(a) the frequency of the breach of conditions,

(b) the intentional nature of the breach, or

(c) the danger to the public involved in the breach,

the licence should be revoked or suspended.

(3) Where the Secretary of State revokes a licence he may, if it appears to him to be expedient to do so, direct that the revocation is a provisional revocation which will not take effect until a future date; and where he gives such a direction he may either make final the revocation or withdraw it.

(4) An operator’s licence suspended under the foregoing provisions of this section shall during the time of suspension be of no effect.

(5) Subject to subsection (6) below, if a condition attached to an operator’s licence is broken, the holder of the licence commits an offence.

(6) It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (5) above to prove that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid a breach of that condition.

(7) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (5) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.