3.2 Tamper-Evident PHC Decals & Display Compliance

3.2 Tamper-Evident PHC Decals & Display Compliance

Quick Summary: Since 1 July 2017, chauffeured private hire cars must display a pair of tamper-evident decals at the front and back windscreens. The decals are tied to the specific vehicle, cannot be transferred, and must be replaced at an LTA-Authorised Inspection Centre within three calendar days if damaged. Decal offences are among the most heavily penalised in the whole vocational licensing regime.

The decal lets a commuter, a platform and an enforcement officer see at a glance that the car in front of them is a licensed chauffeured PHC. That is why LTA attaches such severe demerit points to displaying nothing, or displaying something that cannot be read.

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1. What Must Be Displayed, and Where

LTA's requirement is stated simply: chauffeured private hire cars must display a pair of tamper-evident decals at the front and back windscreens. Both must be present, intact and legible.

• The decals are obtained and affixed at an LTA-Authorised Inspection Centre (AIC) - VICOM, STA Inspection or JIC. A driver never buys or affixes them himself.
• A pair costs $20 including GST to obtain and affix.
• Decals are not transferable between vehicles and must remain affixed for as long as the car operates as a chauffeured PHC.
• It is illegal to tamper with the decals, including reattaching a decal that has already been tampered with, and illegal to remove them from an active chauffeured vehicle.

[!NOTE] LTA publishes the requirement as "a pair of tamper-evident decals at the front and back". Do not memorise an invented corner position or a millimetre offset - what is examinable is that both decals are present, correctly affixed by an AIC, unobscured and legible. Separately, obstructing or obscuring the front windscreen of a chauffeured PHC or taxi is itself a scheduled offence carrying 5 demerit points under Rule 6(1) of the Road Traffic (Public Service Vehicles) Rules ["PSV Rules"], so do not let film, stickers or sunshades creep over the glass.

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2. Deadlines: The Three-Calendar-Day Rule

Three calendar days is the number to remember, and it appears twice in a PHC's life.

Calendar days, not working days: a decal damaged on a Friday must be dealt with by Monday, weekends included.

Replacement Procedure

1. Stop driving commercially. With a missing or damaged decal the car is not correctly marked as a chauffeured PHC, and every trip risks the 21-point or 12-point offences below.
2. Bring the vehicle to any AIC. Take the vehicle log card and, if the windscreen was replaced, the workshop invoice.
3. The inspection centre affixes a fresh pair. The old decals are invalidated and are not reused.

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3. Decal Inspection at Periodic Inspections

Decal condition is a mandatory inspection item at the PHC's periodic inspection. Beyond the standard inspection fee, the owner pays an additional $13.08 including GST for the decal inspection. The inspector checks that the decals have not been tampered with.

[!IMPORTANT] Two fees are easy to confuse. $20 including GST is the cost of obtaining and affixing a pair of decals. $13.08 including GST is the decal inspection charge added at a periodic inspection. Neither is the $21.80 administrative fee for an optional physical vocational licence card - that is a driver-licensing fee, not a vehicle one.

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4. Decal Offences: The Actual Demerit Points

This table is worth memorising. The gap between "no decal at all" and "decal is faded" is the difference between 21 points and 12 points, and 21 points on its own exceeds the revocation threshold.

A vocational licence may be revoked once the demerit points awarded within the relevant 24-month period exceed 20, so driving with no decal displayed - a single offence - is enough to put the licence in front of the Registrar for revocation. Two faded-decal offences inside the same period reach 24 points and do the same.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Decal Compliance vs. Violation Guide                  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  [ COMPLIANT ]                                                          |
|  - Pair of tamper-evident decals affixed by an AIC, front and back      |
|  - Both intact, unobscured and legible from outside the vehicle         |
|                                                                         |
|  [ 12 POINTS + $500 ]                                                   |
|  - Decal not properly affixed, e.g. held on with tape                   |
|  - Decal defaced, covered, obscured or altered                          |
|  - Decal illegible, or discoloured by fading                            |
|                                                                         |
|  [ 21 POINTS + $500 - LICENCE-ENDING ]                                  |
|  - Driving with no authorised decal displayed at all                    |
|  - Removing an authorised decal without authority                       |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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5. Worked Example: Windscreen Damage on the PIE

Siti drives a Z10 Mazda 3. On the PIE a stone chip cracks her front windscreen and destroys the front decal.

1. She completes the drop-off, then stops accepting bookings. With no front decal displayed she would be exposed to the Rule 22C(1)(a) offence - $500 and 21 demerit points - on every subsequent trip.
2. Her workshop replaces the windscreen the next morning and issues a tax invoice showing the vehicle number and the replacement date.
3. Within three calendar days of the damage she brings the car to an AIC, which affixes a fresh pair of decals.
4. She resumes driving. At her next periodic inspection the decals will be checked as a mandatory item, with the $13.08 decal inspection fee added to the standard inspection charge.

The judgement call in this scenario is the decision to stop driving. Continuing to work for even a day with the front decal missing risks a penalty far larger than a day's earnings.