UK Driving Licence - Beware!

Unwitting motorists face £1,000 fines as thousands of photo card driving licences expire.

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 photo card 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.

This fiasco has come to light a decade after the first batch of photo licences was issued in July 1998, just as the 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 Photo cards 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 a 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 photo card 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.

Just below the driver name on the front of the photo card 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.

Motorists who fail to renew their licences in time are allowed to continue driving. But the DVLA says they could be charged with 'failing to surrender their licence', an offence carrying a £1,000 fine.

AA president, Edmund King said: 'It is not generally known that photo card licences expire: there appears to be a lack of information that people will have to renew these licences.

'People think they have already paid them for once over and that is it.

'It will come as a surprise to motorists and a shock that they have to pay an extra £17.50.'

The AA called on the Government to use the annual £450million from traffic enforcement fines to offset the renewal charge.

Feck!! Mines runs out in October this year

its a rip off

https://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/index.php?threads/199736/

Oh come on, £17.50 once a decade. Hardly going to break the bank now.

I actually think it's a super idea and 10 years is too long, why should you have a licence for life??? You're basically in charge of one big killing machine, there isn't one compelling argument that is actually coherent to say why you should have an unrestricted licence from 17 - death

This way you have to declare deterioration in your eyesight, health etc on your new application so if you are blind they may ask you to take a new test, in which case it's possibly one less crap driver on the road which if you ask me can only be a good thing and if you lie on your application and get stopped then it's your own tough luck I hope they take the licence away untill you can prove that, with your ailment, you can drive.

In theory you should inform the DVLA of any ailments which arise in any event, but nobody does, they just get their new super lens prescription and drive home. This is a way of forcing you to.

Roll on renewal tests!!! Get some of those tossers out my way! THE STALK ON YOUR STEERING WHEEL HAS A USE - IT'S CALLED AN INDICATOR AND INFORMS SURROUNDING TRAFFIC OF YOUR INTENDED DIRECTION SHOULD THEIR MIND READING POWERS ALLUDE THEM - JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE THE EFFECTS DOESN'T MEAN IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING - and I'm going to say it because it;s true, it's mostly middle age drivers that fail to indicate (and say thank you), so stuck in their "I've been driving for 30 years" ways that apparently they are exempt from any form of signaling

i spend a lot of time on the road, and i think a retest should be forced on people at 60-65

I got this in an email yesterday, was going to post but found it was already done. Luckily for me I still have the old paper version. We already have to pay road tax and I see this payment as a form of stealth tax. They must be making millions!

you should have to pass a driving test every ten yrs if you ask me.
some people on the road simply shouldn't be driving.

explosivo said:

you should have to pass a driving test every ten yrs if you ask me.
most people on the road simply shouldn't be driving.

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Correction ^^^

I've still got the ancient old green paper one.

I've still got the old paper green one.

Do you think that will be invalid one day and that we'll all have to move over to the photo card one?

maya1103 said:

I've still got the old paper green one.

Do you think that will be invalid one day and that we'll all have to move over to the photo card one?

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I imagine so but the Photo ones have been around a while now so doesn't look like anything imminent.

Surely they cant force you to go for photo, consider the unnecessary expense people will have. It might not be much but its still paying for something. Current idea is fine, when your forced to change your licence then change to photocard.

:err: I done a search but though the info was fairly new, I didn't go back to Janurary

I am on my 2nd photo 10 year driving licence now, maybe even 3rd, we have had them for ages. Mine run out a few yeas ago and I forgot to renew it for about 18 months, there wasn't a problem when renewing it at all and the tens years started from when I renewed it. Its £19 over here to renew it.

i'm still on the paper licence and had to produce recently and the old bill never said anything

its not compulsary so i'm not doing it basically

they want me to have one then they can pay for one

load of bullshit the photo licenses are

if you have one yopu still have to have a paper one
if you need to produce to the police you have to take both

my thoughts if you have a photo license then you shouldnt have the other

My photo expires in 2012, I suppose it's to update the photo every 10 years.

Dutcho said:

My photo expires in 2012, I suppose it's to update the photo every 10 years.

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It's to update the DVLA with your health as far as I'm aware.

The paper part of the licence is only to record any offences. We are quite lax I think, most countries require you to carry your documents at all times whilst driving and failure to do so is an offence in itself.

I really don't think carrying a piece of plastic for £17.50 is really that big an issue if it draws to the attention of the Police those who drive without a licence.

Slightly off topic I wish we had more prison space, I think those that drive without a licence / insurance really should cop it heavy.

Why the MIB should have to stump up for these dickheads is beyond me, they should be my bitch until they have paid of in labour the equivalent of an insurance policy, then they should be forced to go onto compared.com in the courtroom and buy some there an then.

My grandpas license expired when he was 75 but he still drives to the shops once a week at 96 now he tells me the uks went to the bins and what are they realy gonna do to him lock him up .. the funny thing is he pays saga money dd every month for a policy that wont even be valid. ... OLD PEOPLE RULE ...

My licence sorta looks like an old 1 pound note, it's looks awfully similar to a bank note, lol I passed in the 80's.