Guide To The ADR Extension

It’s an interesting time for training at the moment: the ADR Extension unveiled last year will soon be coming to a close, and there has been a lot of conflicting information about any future ADR extensions. Some may have read that drivers are now covered until June, others that the new expiry is in September. For all of us based in the UK however, the situation is very different.

To sum it up: most ADR cards that expired in 2020 are currently extended until the 1st of March 2021. The UK currently has no plans for any further extensions.

The Current ADR Extension In The UK

The member states of ADR can, if they agree, implement a multilateral agreement. Once this is in place, member states can choose to sign up to it. Following the first lockdown, the extension to the validity of ADR Driver Training Certificates was extended by multilateral agreement M330. This permitted drivers whose ADR had expired between March 2020 until February 2021 to drive with the expired ADR until 28th February 2021. The UK and many other member states signed up to this agreement, so the validity of ADR’s during this period was extended until 28th February 2021.

Why Have I Been Told Different Dates For The ADR Extension?

Just before M330 was due to expire, Germany introduced multilateral agreement M333. This, effectively, extends M330 so that ADR’s that expired between March 2020 and September 2021 would be valid until 30th September 2021. Some other member states, including the Republic of Ireland have signed up to M333. However, the United Kingdom has not. As such, any ADR Driver Training Certificates that expired between March last year and February this year must be refreshed by 28th February this year. Following this date, they will be invalid.

Are ADR Courses Still Going Ahead?

In order to allow drivers to undertake ADR training, the Department for Transport and DVSA have permitted online training for ADR. Originally there were two problems with providing ADR online. The first was that ADR requires practical exercises to be undertaken, which isn’t really possible remotely. Currently these are permitted to be undertaken using written scenarios. The second was the examinations. It isn’t possible to run the ADR examinations remotely, so the current situation is that the training is carried out remotely and the examinations are carried out in the classroom, face-to-face, using Covid secure precautions.

The ADR Driver Training Certificate is sent from SQA in Glasgow. Currently SQA are not allowed in their building. Therefore, it isn’t possible for the ADR certificates to be sent to drivers. For this reason, the Department for Transport have issued ‘Authorisation 970’. This permits a driver, who holds a current ADR, to drive a vehicle subject to dangerous goods regulations, with Authorisation 970 in the place of the ADR Driver Training Certificate. This will be emailed to the driver once they pass the examinations. Authorisation 970 is in place until 30th June this year. I believe that this date, and the September date in M333; neither of which extend the validity for drivers in the UK, are the dates being misquoted to you.

What Comes Next?

As there are no more extensions planned, it will be important that drivers complete their ADR training if they haven’t already. Please feel free to browse through our course dates, and if they work for you, then you can book your course directly through the website. We have just made a new date available for the ADR Refresher course, starting on the 22nd of February.

The rules can change at any time at the moment, so make sure to check back here for any future updates. And as always, if we can ever help, then get in touch with us.