What a completed safety inspection record looks like

Most of what is written about safety inspection records describes a blank form. That is the least useful version of it. The blank form tells you which boxes exist; it does not tell you what a box looks like when it has been filled in properly, which is the thing anyone assessing your compliance is actually going to read.

So this page works the other way round. Below is a finished record for a lorry - identity fields completed, every item coded, tyre and brake figures entered, defects written up against the item that failed, and the declaration signed. Each section of this page takes one part of it and says what it is for and where the requirement comes from.

A completed safety inspection record (PDF)

A real record generated by Vehtra, filled in as it would be after an inspection. Open it alongside this page — every section below refers to it. No email address, no sign-up.

Open the example record

Sample data throughout. Not an official DVSA document.

The floor DVSA sets

Section 4.4 of the Guide to maintaining roadworthiness sets out the minimum content of a safety inspection report:

"Each report should show at least the following:

name of operator

date and ISO week of inspection

organisation conducting the inspection

address / location of inspection

vehicle identity (registration/trailer number)

make and model

odometer (mileage recorder) reading (if appropriate)

a list of all items to be inspected

an indication of the condition of each item inspected

details of any defects found

name and signature of inspector

details of any remedial/rectification or repair work and who carried out the work

named signed and dated statement declaring that all safety defects have been repaired satisfactorily and the vehicle is now in a safe and roadworthy condition"

Read the wording carefully, because two phrases in it do most of the work. "Should show at least" makes this a floor and not a specification - a fuller report is not a wrong one, and section 4.4 explicitly anticipates going wider: "Additional items may be included in the safety inspection, which may be non-testable items required for specific operations or local additional safety requirements, such as the Direct Vision Standards."

The other phrase is "a list of all items to be inspected", followed by "an indication of the condition of each item inspected". Together those rule out the most common failing in a real record: writing down only what was wrong. A record showing three defects and nothing else does not evidence an inspection. It evidences three defects.

The identity block

The record opens with operator, vehicle registration, inspection date, make and model, chassis number, odometer reading and the ISO week number. That covers every identity field in the section 4.4 list.

The ISO week sits next to the date because section 4.4 asks for both, and because DVSA sets out its own worked example of an inspection schedule in ISO weeks. If your maintenance programme is planned in weeks - and most are - the week number is what lets a record be matched back to the plan it was supposed to satisfy. A date alone makes that a manual exercise for whoever is reviewing it.

Item list and condition codes

The body of the record is the item list, one row per item, with a reference number, the item name, a condition code and the initials of whoever inspected it.

The codes are the specimen form's: a tick for satisfactory, a cross for a safety item defect, R for repair required, N/A for not applicable, and Monitor for possible maintenance required before the next safety inspection.

Monitor is the one worth being careful with. It is the field-level expression of what section 4.4 says about work carried forward, and it is not a way of parking a defect. Whatever mix of codes a record carries, the vehicle has to be declared roadworthy before it goes back out. Monitor is for a component that is serviceable now and may not be by the next inspection - a tyre with legal but falling tread, a pad approaching its wear limit. It is not for a fault you would rather not deal with today.

Every item carries a code. That is the "condition of each item inspected" requirement, and it is why the list runs to the full inspection scope rather than an exceptions list.

Why the item list carries a version date

The item list on a record is not a fixed national list you can copy once and forget. Section 1.4 sends you to a separate publication for the item-by-item standard:

"The scope of the inspection should at least include all the items covered by the statutory annual test and employ the methods of assessment that are prescribed in the respective inspection manual"

For lorries and trailers that is the MOT inspection manual for HGVs - a different document, on a different revision cycle, currently in a version effective from 1 April 2026. The specimen record annexed to the guide carries a document creation date of 19 July 2024, and the manual has been reissued four times since.

That is a risk of drift rather than a finding. Nothing published says the annex is withdrawn or superseded, and no specific reference number on it has been shown to be wrong. What it means is that any item list which is not dated against a manual version is a list nobody can audit. Section 4.7 expects an inspector to "possess a sound working knowledge of the relevant inspection manuals produced by DVSA", and that knowledge has a version number attached to it whether or not anyone writes it down.

The practical discipline is simple: date-stamp whatever item list you settle on with the version of the manual you checked it against, and look at it again on each reissue. That applies to a printed sheet, a workshop spreadsheet, and any static item list taken off the internet.

It is also the part of this job that software should be doing rather than a person. In Vehtra the check list is versioned by effective date, and a record is generated against the list that was in force on the date of the inspection - so a record produced today and a record produced two years ago each show the list that applied at the time, and neither is silently rewritten when the list next changes.

Tyres

Tread depth and pressure per wheel position - offside outer, offside inner, nearside inner, nearside outer - across each axle, with the tyre size and manufacture date recorded alongside.

Depth and pressure are figures rather than codes on purpose. "Satisfactory" against a tyre records a judgement; 4mm records the evidence for it, and it is the figure that lets the next inspection see a trend rather than a snapshot. This is the same reasoning that makes the odometer reading part of the minimum list.

Braking performance

The braking section carries the date of the assessment, whether the vehicle was laden, the method used, and the per-axle results - service, secondary and parking brake performance percentages, with brake temperatures and pad and disc wear where those are recorded, an overall result and a comments box for the inspector.

Those first three fields are exactly what section 5.3 asks the record to carry:

"The safety inspection record should indicate the date of the assessment, how the braking performance was assessed and whether the vehicle or trailer was laden."

Section 5.3 also expects the underlying printout to travel with the record - "A signed printout of the brake performance test from either the RBT, plate tester or decelerometer should be attached to the safety inspection record" - so a brake test document attached to the inspection is appended to the generated PDF rather than filed separately from it. A printout in a different drawer to the record it belongs to is a printout nobody will produce when it matters.

For the methods themselves, the expectation of an assessment at every safety inspection, the four-tests-a-year pattern and the risk assessment that applies where a laden test is not carried out, see braking performance assessment.

Defects and rectification

Defects are written up against the item that failed, carrying the same reference and item name from the list above, with the defect, the action taken and the initials of whoever did the work.

Keeping the identifier is what makes the record readable in a year's time. A defect list that says "nearside rear light" is a note; one that ties back to a numbered item on a dated list is a record. The section 4.4 list asks separately for "details of any defects found" and "details of any remedial/rectification or repair work and who carried out the work" - two entries, because finding a fault and repairing it are separate acts, frequently by different people, and each needs a name against it.

The declaration

The record ends with the inspector's name, signature and date, and a separate declaration of roadworthiness with the name, position, signature and date of the person making it.

That is the last entry in the section 4.4 list - a "named signed and dated statement" - and the position field matters as much as the name. Recording who declared the vehicle roadworthy, and in what capacity they did it, is the entire point of the field.

What the record has to do once it exists

Complete it fully, before the vehicle goes back out. Section 4.4 states it flatly:

"Safety inspection reports must be fully completed, and the vehicle declared roadworthy before it returns to service."

That is a "must" - under the guide's own convention in section 1.1, a direct legal requirement set out in legislation. It also means the rectification and declaration sections are not paperwork that catches up next week. They are the condition on the vehicle working again.

One record per inspection, vehicles and trailers alike. "A safety inspection report must be completed for each safety inspection for both vehicles and trailers."

Keep it for 15 months. Retention is a must, and the period is not twelve months:

"Safety inspection and repair work records, whether undertaken by operators or contracted out, must be kept for at least 15 months as part of a vehicle's maintenance history."

That obligation follows the record rather than the vehicle. It holds for vehicles that have been removed from the operator licence or sold.

The format is yours; the content is not. There is no mandatory form. Section 1.4: "The safety inspection form can be any format as long as the mandatory items listed in Section 1 of this guide are included on the form." The specimen DVSA publishes is an example, not a document you are obliged to use. An in-house sheet, a workshop's own layout or a screen in a maintenance system are equally acceptable provided the required items are on them.

Going electronic changes the medium, not the requirements. Where the report is stored electronically the paper version does not need to be retained, and section 4.6 requires computer records to contain the same information as any comparable manual form. What a PMI inspection must cover goes through the record requirements in full, including what section 4.6 expects of a computerised system.