One of his major concerns is club plated cars misusing their plates for commercial gain and doing weddings. He asserted that if those in charge of the industry were really concerned about public safety, they wouldn’t allow the risk of illegals on the road – operators that have no duty of care, pay less in registration and TAC and profit from illegal activity let alone not pay taxes and stamp duty.

Currently there are 90,000 H-plate club permit vehicles in Victoria, but not all of them are being used illegally.

CONCERNS RAISED

• Club plated cars are advertised on social media, booking agents, magazines, the Easy Weddings website and VIC Tourism websites stating they are available for weddings and promotional work. 
• Many illegals show up on Facebook and Instagram, yet VicRoads hasn’t had many offences reported about this, which supports the idea that the public isn’t aware of illegal versus legal operators. 

WHAT’S BEEN DONE

• VicRoads has designed and implemented a new procedure in January 2021 to investigate reports of club permit vehicles being used as wedding vehicles. CPVV’s website was updated to outline this to commercial passenger vehicle participants. 
• In 2020, the current Road Safety (Vehicles) Regulations were amended to make it clear that club permit vehicles were not to be used for commercial purposes. Specifically, the amendments state that this misuse is a breach of the general conditions of commercial passenger vehicles. ​
• It was also confirmed that clubs can indeed be cancelled; those with club permits using their vehicles commercially must be reported to CPVV. Their vehicle club permit would be cancelled along with the club, if it ended up being involved in the scheme. The investigation would then be passed onto Victoria Police and State Revenue Office. 
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MOVING FORWARD
​CPVV advised that its compliance team has expanded from 12 to 50, and they are apparently being trained in all things CPVV.

Greg Maloney from CPVV emphasised that CPVV is removing illegal vehicles from its system – some of which have popped up again but CPVV is continuing to enforce them.

VicRoads has requested any evidence with regards to club permit vehicle owners operating illegally be forwarded to them via the VicRoads website.

VicRoads takes these concerns with the utmost seriousness and investigations are in process.
Since VicRoads can’t fine H-plates for flouting the laws, it would inform Victoria Police, which in turn would action the fining.

SOLUTION SUGGESTIONS
It was agreed that public awareness on the issue of illegals needs to be increased, as customers don’t know the difference between illegal operators and legal operators.

Rob Lightowler, WCA Vice President, is confident that with an effective advertising campaign across the hire car industry to highlight illegal operators, whilst the enforcement of illegals continues, a majority of them can be eliminated.

WCA, TAA and VicRoads will strategise an advertising campaign to educate the public, and organise a social media campaign to encourage commercial passenger drivers to apply for a CPV Driver’s Licence and an Australian Business Number and to be registered for GST.

VicRoads will raise the possibility of a government level awareness campaign about the illegal use of club permit or registered vehicles as commercial passenger vehicles with CPVV and DoT.

VicRoads will assess whether a message specifying club plated vehicles must not be used commercially can be added to club permit renewals.

VicRoads’ website will be reviewed to see if the text can be made more detailed and explicit.
VicRoads will consider writing to all associations and clubs reminding them to reinforce this aspect of the regulations with its members.

WCA wants to promote parts of the VicRoads website on its socials and website that indicate H-plates should not to be risking operating illegally.

It was suggested that drivers with club permit vehicles should require a special VicRoads’ permit to do weddings (in the instance they are doing the work for their family or loved ones).

VicRoads will consider the practicality of introducing “wedding use recognition certificates” for club permit vehicles. This will most likely be a longer term project that, if adopted as a draft proposal, would require a regulatory change to implement.

VicRoads brought up the possibility that its cameras could check number plates of vehicles with wedding ribbons to see if they are club plated and/or illegal, and advised that they will take this up with Traffic Management Centre.

​It is important to note that WCA and the hire car industry are not against club permit vehicles but are certainly against them working as any sort of commercial hire car in Victoria.

TAA will keep its members updated on future meetings and any changes/resolution involving the issues WCA has brought to light.

More news in DRIVE NOW's July 2021 Edition here.