Certificates of professional competence (CPC) and driver responsibilities
This domain tests the legal framework around you as a professional driver: the CPC you must hold, the documents you carry, and where your responsibility ends and the operator's begins. It is a favourite area for questions about pressure from an employer.
Driver CPC (chaufføruddannelse)
- Professional lorry driving requires initial CPC for category C, followed by periodic training of 35 hours every five years to keep the qualification valid.
- The driver qualification card is carried and produced on request together with the driving licence. Driving without valid CPC can be treated as driving without the required qualification.
- Training covers advanced road safety, application of the regulations, health and environmental safety and logistics. Some national exemptions exist, but they are narrow and do not cover ordinary commercial haulage.
What you must carry and use
Driving licence, CPC card, driver card, vehicle registration, transport documents and, where relevant, ADR or other special permits. You must make manual tachograph entries, keep 28 days of records, and record your activity correctly.
Where responsibility sits
The driver is responsible for driving and rest times, tachograph use, the daily vehicle check, correct loading and securement, and for refusing to drive a vehicle that is unsafe or overloaded. The operator (vognmand) is responsible for authorisation, good repute (vandelskrav), vehicle maintenance and for planning work that makes compliance possible. An instruction from a dispatcher is never a defence: you remain the person who signs off the day.
Worked example. A dispatcher plans a run that needs 11 hours of driving in one day and tells you to skip the break to make the ferry. Your correct answer: the plan is unlawful. Daily driving is capped at 9 hours, extendable to 10 only twice a week, and the 45-minute break after 4.5 hours is compulsory; the dispatcher's instruction does not transfer liability to the company. You report the conflict, and you do not drive the plan.
Traps that cost marks
- Believing that following an employer's order excuses an infringement.
- Thinking the CPC card is needed only when driving abroad.
- Confusing the driver's duty to check loading with the loader's duty to load correctly.