Every Autodue walkaround ends with a DVSA-compliant PDF: a verification code, GPS and timestamp locked at completion, and the full check result. Here is what each part of the report proves, what a roadside examiner actually looks for, and what happens when a defect is on it.
Key Takeaways
- Every completed Autodue walkaround automatically generates a DVSA-compliant PDF, watermarked with a unique verification code that ties it back to the record on the server.
- DVSA's Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness accepts "user-friendly digital devices" for daily defect reporting, and requires driver defect reports to be kept for at least 15 months.
- At a roadside check, the examiner wants proof that today's walkaround happened. DVSA fixed penalties run in four bands from £50 to £300 per offence, and each examiner can issue up to 5 in a single encounter.
- A serious defect found at the roadside brings a PG9 prohibition: immediate, meaning the vehicle does not move, or delayed, meaning up to 10 days to fix the fault and clear a reinspection.
- The PDF still works with no signal. Autodue's Roadside Mode pre-caches the report for the current vehicle, with an on-device proof page as the fallback.
A compliance PDF is the document that turns "I did the walkaround" into something a DVSA examiner can hold. In Autodue, every completed daily check ends with one: generated automatically, stamped with the time and location the check finished, and carrying a verification code that ties the document back to the live record on the server.
If you run vans or HGVs, that document is the difference between a two-minute roadside conversation and a long one. Examiners are not testing your memory. They are testing your evidence.
This guide walks through the Autodue roadside report section by section: what each part of it proves, why the verification code matters more than the layout, and what the penalties look like when the evidence is not there.
What a compliance PDF is and why it exists
A compliance PDF is a machine-generated record of a completed daily walkaround check, produced as a document that can be shown to a DVSA examiner, a Traffic Commissioner, or an auditor. Autodue creates one at the end of every walkaround, without the driver doing anything extra. The check produces the evidence as a by-product of doing the work.
The reason it exists is the gap paper leaves behind. The Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness tells operators to equip drivers with a "suitable paper defect checklist or user-friendly digital devices" for daily defect reporting. Both are legal. Only one of them can prove when and where the check was done. A tick on a clipboard is a claim; a record with a locked timestamp, GPS coordinates and a server-side verification code is evidence.
The legal duty behind all of this sits with the daily walkaround itself, covered in full in our guide to the daily walkaround check law. The PDF is not a separate obligation. It is the proof that the existing obligation was met.
What a DVSA examiner asks for at the roadside
When DVSA stops a commercial vehicle, the examiner checks the vehicle's condition and the paperwork behind it, and one of the first questions is whether the daily walkaround was done. Producing a record on the spot answers the question. Failing to produce one invites the examiner to go looking for the defects the check should have caught.
The financial mechanics are set out on gov.uk. DVSA fixed penalties run in four bands: £50, £100, £200 and £300 per offence, graduated by severity. Each examiner can issue up to 5 fixed penalty notices in a single encounter, so one bad stop can stack £1,500 of penalties from one officer before anyone mentions prohibition or prosecution.
What the examiner looks at, in what order, and what triggers a stop in the first place is covered in our full DVSA roadside inspections guide. The short version for this article: the walkaround record is the first document that gets asked for, and the compliance PDF is Autodue's answer to it.
What is in the report: the record behind the PDF
The Autodue roadside report carries the completed check itself: the vehicle's registration, the fixed check items with their results, the time and place the check was signed off, and the verification code that ties the document to the server record. Each of those elements answers a specific examiner question, so it is worth taking them one at a time.
The check items and their results
Autodue runs a fixed 19-point walkaround check for vans and a 27-point check for HGVs, matching the regulator's expected coverage out of the box. The report reflects the full breakdown: every item the driver checked and whether it passed or failed. There is no blank template for an examiner to wonder about, and no operator-invented checklist missing the items DVSA expects to see.
A pass on every item is the boring, correct outcome. A fail is not a failure of the system; it is the system working. A failed item with a photograph attached shows the defect was found, recorded and routed to someone who can fix it, which is exactly the behaviour the Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness demands of a defect reporting system.
The GPS coordinates and timestamp
At the moment the driver signs off the check, Autodue locks the device's GPS coordinates and a precise timestamp into the record, along with the odometer reading. Not when the record uploads, and not when someone at the depot remembers to file it: at completion. That distinction is what stops a Tuesday check being written up on Wednesday morning, and it is the load-bearing feature of the whole document. The full argument for why the metadata carries the evidential weight is in our guide to GPS and timestamp verification for fleet compliance.
The verification code
Every report is watermarked with a unique verification code that ties the PDF back to the record on Autodue's servers. This is what separates a verifiable document from a nice-looking one. Anyone can produce a tidy PDF after the fact; nobody can produce a matching server record with a completion timestamp from three hours before the stop. The code means the document does not have to be trusted on its appearance. It can be checked against the source.
What happens when there is a defect on the report
A defect on the report starts a process, not a panic. In Autodue, a failed check item with its photo goes into defect management, where it is assigned, tracked and closed, so the fix is documented as thoroughly as the fault. The report showing the defect and the record showing the repair together make the story an examiner or auditor wants to read.
At the roadside, a defect the driver missed carries sharper consequences. A vehicle with a significant fault picks up a PG9 prohibition, and gov.uk sets out the two forms: an immediate prohibition, where the vehicle is off the road on the spot, or a delayed prohibition, where the operator has up to 10 days to fix the fault and clear a reinspection. Either way the prohibition lands on the operator's compliance record, and a pattern of them invites attention from the Traffic Commissioner.
That is the practical case for a check record that shows defects being caught by the driver rather than the examiner. The document proves the system found the fault first.
No signal at the kerb: the cached PDF and the proof page
A report that only loads with a connection would fail in exactly the places DVSA likes to operate: laybys, industrial estates, the edge of nowhere. Autodue's Roadside Mode pre-caches the signed compliance PDF for the current vehicle while the phone is online, so it opens from cache with no signal at all.
If the PDF has not been cached, the fallback is a native on-device proof page built from the last sync: the registration, the latest walkaround with its full pass and fail breakdown, and the vehicle's MOT, tax and insurance dates, with the date the data was last refreshed. The examiner sees a record either way. How the offline flow works end to end, including its honest limits, is covered in offline walkaround checks.
Beyond the roadside: retention and audits
The same document that satisfies a roadside stop also does the quiet, long-term work. The Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness requires driver defect reports and safety inspection records to be kept for at least 15 months, including for vehicles that have left the fleet. A digital record does that by existing; a paper one does it by surviving 15 months of van cabs, coffee and filing.
For operators aiming higher, the DVSA Earned Recognition audit standards explicitly ask for evidence of an electronic process for walkaround checks, and for a cross-check of driver-reported defects against safety inspection findings. With every check filed on the fleet management view, that cross-check becomes a filter and a sort rather than a weekend with a lever-arch file. The wider comparison between paper and digital record-keeping is in paper vs digital walkaround checks.
The bottom line
The compliance PDF is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the two-minute version of a conversation every operator eventually has with a DVSA examiner, and it answers the three questions that matter: was the check done, when and where was it done, and what was found. The verification code makes the answers checkable, the locked GPS and timestamp make them credible, and the 15-month record makes them durable.
If your current walkaround evidence is a clipboard in a door pocket, the honest test is this: could your driver produce this morning's check, with its time, place and results, at a layby on the A14? If the answer is no, that gap is fixable before the next stop, not after it.
Show a roadside examiner a verified check in two taps. Every Autodue walkaround ends in a DVSA-compliant PDF, GPS-locked and timestamped at completion. First van free.
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Sources: Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness (GOV.UK) · DVSA roadside checks: fines and financial deposits (GOV.UK) · Roadside checks: fines, penalty points and other sanctions (GOV.UK) · Roadside prohibitions (GOV.UK) · HGV operator audit standards: DVSA earned recognition (GOV.UK)