Bus and coach daily walkaround checks

A lorry driver checks a vehicle. A bus or coach driver checks a vehicle and a public building on wheels. DVSA’s walkaround check for public service vehicles has 29 items, and nine of them cover the passenger saloon alone. PCV theory questions often pick exactly those.

You must do the check before your journey, report defects in writing to the person responsible for repairs, and record “nil defects” when you find none. Using a bus in a dangerous condition can bring an unlimited fine and a prison sentence.

Sitting in the driver’s seat

Start where you will spend the day. Check the windscreen for cracks and obstructions in the wiper sweep, every mirror and camera monitor, the wipers and washers, the horn and the steering. Then:

• Warning lamps: ABS, main beam and parking brake among them.
• Air pressure: builds normally, the warning works and there are no leaks you can hear.
• Height marker: shows the correct height. On a double-decker this number decides which roads you can use.
• Ticket machine: working, because a failure leads to arguments at every stop.
• Your own seat belt.

Walking through the saloon

This is the part a lorry check does not have.

A first aid kit is required on a bus with 16 or more passenger seats (except on local services), and on one with 9 to 16 seats first used from April 1988.

Accessibility equipment

On a vehicle covered by the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations, you must also check the wheelchair space and its safety features, the ramp or lift, priority seats, handrails and the contrasting colours on steps and rails. DVSA’s guidance adds that you must know how these features work. If the ramp fails during the day, a wheelchair user at the next stop is stranded, so report it at once.

Coaches with toilets, kitchens or other special features need those checked too: safe to use, no leaks, and no fumes from engine covers entering the saloon.

Outside the vehicle

Walk round in one direction so nothing is missed:

1. Tyres and wheels: at least 1 mm of tread, correct pressure, no deep cuts or visible cord, nothing trapped between twin wheels, every wheel nut present, and wheel nut indicators aligned. Tyres on a bus’s front axle must not be more than ten years old.
2. Lights, indicators, side repeaters and reflectors: working, clean, correct colour.
3. Number plate: complete, clean, correctly spaced.
4. Body: no jagged edges where passengers walk past, luggage lockers and access flaps closed and locked. An open locker door on the nearside is a hazard to people at a stop.
5. Leaks: fuel, oil and waste (from toilets), with the engine running.
6. Exhaust smoke and AdBlue level.
7. Battery, where easy to reach.
8. High-voltage cut-off and fuel isolation: on electric and gas buses, know where the switches are.

Defects that appear later

A bell that stops working at midday or a door that sticks counts as a defect too. Stop somewhere safe, assess it and report it. A dangerous defect must be fixed before the journey continues, even if passengers are waiting.

Wrong answers to watch for

• “The engineer checks the emergency equipment, so the driver need not.” The driver is responsible each day.
• “Remove the hammer to stop it being stolen.”
• “A missing wheelchair ramp can wait until the end of the shift.”

DVSA’s full list is on carry out bus or coach daily walkaround checks. The equipment you check here is used in the situations described in passenger safety, braking and accessibility. Vehicle safety questions are a regular part of the PCV mock tests.