Uk Photocard Driving Licence's

[balli hi]

Hi Guys

Can't remember if this subject has been posted on here before , so apologies if it has , I learned about this problem some time ago from the London Taxi Drivers association , they stated that no reminder would be sent out from the DVLA , as it was the license holders responsibility to know when it expires , however i have since read an article from the AA that states a reminder will be sent out , better to be safe than sorry though , so make sure if you possess one that you know when it expires and renew in good time .

UK Photocard Driving Licence holder?

Copied this from elsewhere - might save you a nasty surprise.

Thousands of motorists are at risk of being fined up to £1,000 because they are unwittingly driving without a valid licence.

They risk prosecution after failing to spot the extremely small print on their photocard licence which says it automatically expires after 10 years and has to be renewed - even though drivers are licensed to drive until the age of 70. The fiasco has come to light a decade after the first batch of photo licences was issued in July 1998, just as they start to expire.

Motoring organisations blamed the Government for the fiasco and said 'most' drivers believed their licences were for life.

A mock-up driving licence from 1998 when the photocards were launched shows the imminent expiry date as item '4b' They said officials had failed to publicise sufficiently the fact that new-style licences - unlike the old paper ones - expire after a set period and have to be renewed.

To rub salt into wounds, drivers will have to pay £17.50 to renew their card - a charge which critics have condemned as a 'stealth tax' and which will earn the Treasury an estimated £437million over 25 years. Official DVLA figures reveal that while 16,136 expired this summer, so far only 11,566 drivers have renewed, leaving 4,570 outstanding. With another 300,000 photocard licences due to expire over the coming year, experts fear the number of invalid licences will soar, putting thousands more drivers in breach of the law and at risk of a fine.

At the heart of the confusion is the small print on the tiny credit-card-size photo licence, which is used in conjunction with the paper version.

4b: The small print on the back of the driving licence is easy to miss

Just below the driver name on the front of the photocard licence is a series of dates and details - each one numbered.

Number 4b features a date in tiny writing, but no explicit explanation as to what it means.

The date's significance is only explained if the driver turns over the card and reads the key on the back which states that '4b' means 'licence valid to'.

Even more confusingly, an adjacent table on the rear of the card sets out how long the driver is registered to hold a licence - that is until his or her 70th birthday. A total of 25million new-style licences have been issued but - motoring experts say - drivers were never sufficiently warned they would expire after 10 years.

The DVLA said failure to update the photocard after 10 years fell into the same category as failing to inform them of a change of address.

CHECK YOUR LICENCE EXPIRY DATE!!!

[Norfolk n Chance]

You get sent a renewal pack 2 months before it expires and it costs £20 to renew...

Did mine recently

[balli hi]

You get sent a renewal pack 2 months before it expires and it costs £20 to renew...

Did mine recently

Yeh , the AA article stated that it would cost £20 , !Removed! liberty if you ask me , still its good to know for sure that a reminder will be sent , so thanks for posting that Gaz The LTDA were adamant last year when they wrote the article , that a reminder would not be sent , they rarely get things wrong , so it would seem to me that the DVLA may have had a change of heart and decided to send out reminders .

[GIDDLEPIN]

You get sent a renewal pack 2 months before it expires and it costs £20 to renew...

Did mine recently

Yeh , the AA article stated that it would cost £20 , bloody liberty if you ask me , still its good to know for sure that a reminder will be sent , so thanks for posting that Gaz The LTDA were adamant last year when they wrote the article , that a reminder would not be sent , they rarely get things wrong , so it would seem to me that the DVLA may have had a change of heart and decided to send out reminders .

You don't want to know how much it is for the privilege of driving an HGV on our wonderful roadworks

[balli hi]

You get sent a renewal pack 2 months before it expires and it costs £20 to renew...

Did mine recently

Yeh , the AA article stated that it would cost £20 , !Removed! liberty if you ask me , still its good to know for sure that a reminder will be sent , so thanks for posting that Gaz The LTDA were adamant last year when they wrote the article , that a reminder would not be sent , they rarely get things wrong , so it would seem to me that the DVLA may have had a change of heart and decided to send out reminders .

You don't want to know how much it is for the privilege of driving an HGV on our wonderful roadworks

Tell us anyway :D , as far as i know renewing a hgv licence up to the age of 45 is free , thereafter you have to renew every 5 years untill you are 65 , then every year after that ....plus :

Photocard driving licence holder

You’ll need to:

* complete the D47P form

* ask a doctor to complete the D4 form - the doctor will normally charge you for completing the report and those registered for VAT are also required to charge an additional 15 per cent on top of their fee

* send the completed forms to DVLA, Swansea SA99 1BR

A message on your D47P form will tell you if your photo is due for renewal, in which case you’ll need to include a new passport type photo and the fee of £20.00. You only need to provide the fee if your photo needs renewing.

How often do you have to have a medical ?

I know from experience that medicals are not cheap , although i got away lightly with the first one as my GP only charged me £110 , he was entitled to charge double that , but i think he likes me plus it helps if you turn up wearing rags and looking like youv'e been sleeping rough , , only kidding of course :lol2: and before anyone says we all look like that anyway , no we don't .... just the majority :lol2:

We have to have medicals from the age of 50 , in order to satisfy the Taxi licensing authority that we remain medically fit to hold a taxi drivers license , the first one's at age 50 then 56 , 62 , 65 , and annually thereafter .

Plus we have to renew our Taxi Drivers license every 3 years and have a CRB check done as well at additional cost , my last renewal in july cost £285 then in august it cost £164 to renew the license on the cab , so i suppose £20 for the renewal of the photocard driving license is peanuts in comparison , i still can't see how the government can justify it though , other than for making a tidy sum for the treasury coffers , i can only guess that the climb from £17.50 to £20 must be to cover the cost of postage for sending out reminders.

[Raistlin]

Yet another government money making scheme

[hertsnminds]

If you are in a position to be able to move house or change address once every ten years you can get a new photo card for free and the ten years start from the issue of the new card.

I wonder how many people use another family members address for a month or two to save some money?

[Norfolk n Chance]

I wonder how many people use another family members address for a month or two to save some money?

And run the risk of a £1000 fine if caught ;)

Unless you re-register your car to that address and change your insurance......

[Jamesbelfast]

£20 for a 10 year driving licience equates to 4 pence per week - not worth whinging about in my view especially considering the other costs of motoring.:) Lets be honest your licience is in your possession and if you can't be a**sed to check its expiry date.......................:)

[hertsnminds]

and change your insurance

That isn't a problem for about 1.7 million drivers

The Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB), which compensates people in accidents with uninsured drivers, estimates over 1.7m people drove without cover in 2008.

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8272054.stm

[Norfolk n Chance]

and change your insurance

That isn't a problem for about 1.7 million drivers

The Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB), which compensates people in accidents with uninsured drivers, estimates over 1.7m people drove without cover in 2008.

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8272054.stm

That's un-insured drivers....

I'm talking about if you changed address on your licence it would not match where yor car is registered/insured... a simple check the police can do and you get a £1,000 fine for the priviledge....

[balli hi]

As regards people not being asked to check if their license has expired , the problem was that people were unaware of the fact that the photocards expired after 10 years

( Quote ) Motoring organisations blamed the Government for the fiasco and said 'most' drivers believed their licences were for life.

A mock-up driving licence from 1998 when the photocards were launched shows the imminent expiry date as item '4b' They said officials had failed to publicise sufficiently the fact that new-style licences -unlike the old paper ones - expire after a set period and have to be renewed.

However , as reminders are to be sent out now it should no longer be an issue , unless of course you move house but fail to inform the DVLA , then in the meantime your license renewal reminder is sent to the old address , and you also have not set up a forwarding address with Royal Mail , then your unlucky enough to have to produce your license for whatever reason , and hey presto its expired , plus i wonder if your insurance would be effected as well , because you were driving without a valid driving license .

On the subject of insurance and uninsured drivers , i remember this being discussed a few years ago in the media, it was revealed at the time that as many as 1 in 5 drivers in london were driving uninsured . I've been hit up the back a number of times during my time as a cabby , but have had to swallow the costs of having to have my cab repaired , insurance excess , loss of no claims bonus plus loss of earnings ect due to the fact that the miscreant had given false information and his vehicle could not be traced from the registration plate iether , on a couple of occasions when i was lucky enough to wave down a passing police car , the details obtained revealed that the other bloke had no insurance , i then had to pursue my losses through the county courts , resulting on one occasion of being awarded..... wait for it .... £2.50 a week for a period of around 4 years , it took around 5 and a half years though to get the money i was owed , because the bloke regularly missed payments .... Anyways , drive safe , be lucky :D

[Norfolk n Chance]

plus i wonder if your insurance would be effected as well , because you were driving without a valid driving license

If your licence expires you are treated as though you do not have a licence... so prosecuted for that as well as insurance being null and void...

[Sagitar]

I've been hit up the back a number of times . . . . . vehicle could not be traced from the registration plate

You have my sympathy, it has happened to me too. Not only that but even though I tracked him down, the insurance company could not be bothered to pursue, preferring just to nail my no-claims etc.

It amazes me that we cannot find some highly visible means of demonstrating that cars are taxed and insured. I am pretty sure that in some parts at least of the U.S.A. you have to get a new registration plate annually. I realise that some villains would still counterfeit an annual plate, but something like that would be a step in the right direction.

[Norfolk n Chance]

I've been hit up the back a number of times . . . . . vehicle could not be traced from the registration plate

You have my sympathy, it has happened to me too. Not only that but even though I tracked him down, the insurance company could not be bothered to pursue, preferring just to nail my no-claims etc.

It amazes me that we cannot find some highly visible means of demonstrating that cars are taxed and insured. I am pretty sure that in some parts at least of the U.S.A. you have to get a new registration plate annually. I realise that some villains would still counterfeit an annual plate, but something like that would be a step in the right direction.

In Dubai you renew your plate annually...

But they also have a cunning system... any speeding fines, parking tickets etc aren't issued as and when you commit an offence, instead they are presented to you when you go to renew your plate... if you can't pay them, no new plate and you can't drive your car!