My brother’s received a letter from the DVLA:

“We have received information from a third party.

We now need to make confidential enquiries about your medical fitness to drive cars and motorcycles”

then essentially – ‘fill in the questionnaire within 3 weeks or we’ll revoke your licence.’

Presumably there’s no way of finding out who this “third party” is?

Not that there’s much of a mystery, ex-wife is top of the list of one.

Presumably there’s no way of finding out who this “third party” is?

Nope, but as you say, the shortlist is short.

Bit vindictive unless there genuinely is an issue he needs to disclose. Will he need supporting evidence from his GP?

Non-issue if he is ‘medically fit to drive’, unless he is hiding something?

If he is perfectly healthy within the medical parameters, then his ex-wife has punished him with a bit of paperwork. If that’s the worst she can do, he is getting off pretty lightly!

You could try an FOI request but even if they release the info I’d be surprised if they didn’t redact the name.

If there’s not an issue fill the paprwork In and move on.

Do the same to her. Fight fire with fire. If it wasn’t her. that’s a bonus.

Should be pretty straight forward to deal with. A GP should be able to provide whatever info is required. If theres a ‘notfifiable condition’ ( you’ll find a list of them here) (or vouch that there isn’t a notifiable condition) also a GP can still vouch as to whether that condition impacts on driving.

If they can’t then you’d need to do an NHS driving assessment – which I’ve done and its really interesting. The tests you need to do to keep your license are far more interesting and involving than the test you pass to get it in the first place! However – the waiting list of assessments can be pretty long. In my case they seemed to have one assessor covering the whole of scotland (in a mobile testing facility sitting on flat tyres in a hospital carpark somewhere in the outskirts of Paisley).

If its an act of random vengefulness then fair enough. However if theres a condition thats being kept under wraps and the whistle has been blown, even out of spite, then its worth taking seriously even if its a bitter pill to swallow.

People never doubt their own fitness to drive, and if something does go wrong down the line knowing about but not declaring impairments can blow up in your face pretty spectalarly.

Drug driving?

Any reason she would do so apart from to be vindictive? Is he fit to drive?

Personally I’d be quite glad if someone could do this anonymously. We had an awful job getting my father to stop driving when he was terminally ill and literally falling asleep standing up. Shopped him to his GP who did nothing. At a very difficult time emotionally as a family when you are really trying to do the right thing in terms of keeping third parties safe whilst maintaining a positive relationship with your next of kin the ability to get the DVLA to take his licence without implicating us would have been great.

I’ve been having a look, it’s an anonymous website thing where you can shop anyone you want.

Not the first thing she’s done, or the worst, but as a whole, it’s relatively low on the batshit crazy ex antics scale.

From a sample of one (my old neighbour) the person trying to cause trouble was far angrier when it failed than my neighbour was bothered by the DVLA request. Not rising to it is your brothers best bet. Maybe deny the whole thing to the ex-wife though so she wastes hours arguing with DVLA that they’re fobbing her off?

Would be interested to see what the questions are on the questionnaire.

My MIL definitely shouldn’t be driving (we have told her as much) but has just signed up to get a new car on Motability. Bonkers IMO. We did try to convince her to spend the money on taxis instead.

My MIL definitely shouldn’t be driving

For any of the reasons on the link above?

convert, no issues with the system, in the situation you describe, I’m sure it would be very useful. I guess you might have the same problem; that the list of likely ‘third parties’ is rather small, and you might be put on the spot anyway.

Interesting list. Much more extensive than I thought. Can’t imagine many people tell the DVLA if they have an brief episode of labyrinthitis, or are out of the car for a few months following an op.

NRTom – I can ask him to send them over if you’re really interested?

thegreatape – that’s the general approach!

Bit vindictive unless there genuinely is an issue he needs to disclose. Will he need supporting evidence from his GP?

Your brother will fill in teh form and post it off…his GP will be asked a few questions, maybe asked to examine…then the DVLA will review the data and decide.

I think it’s very important to be able to ‘ship people in’ as driving is a priveledge, not a right. And generally (I find) people are terrible in recognising when they are dangerous.
Relatives and GPs and neighbours have a DUTY to inform the DVLA, once the driver has been given ample opportunity to ‘turn themselves in’.

I feel ZERO guilt for revoking peoples licences if they are not safe to drive. No one should.
If a toddler had a hand gun, the first thing you’d do is take it away from them.,…

DrP

There’s probably little that could be done about one isolated false accusation like that.

On the plus side, if it was malicious, then there is now going to be a record/evidence of that person’s actions. If this is a false accusation and forms part of a pattern of other harassment/stalking behaviour, which together are sufficient for the Police to initiate a criminal investigation, then the Police would presumably be able to request the name of the person who reported your brother from the DVLA.

If I was your brother I would tell no-one else and do what is required then play the waiting game to see if anyone mentions or tries to fish for information.

This is the form presumably – form M1:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/594539/m1-online-confidential-medical-information.pdf

That’s a pretty crazy system. Vichy France, Stasi, KGB, DVLC… .

If a toddler had a hand gun, the first thing you’d do is take it away from them.,…

and yet they give Trump the nuclear codes……

They gave him some codes. Whether they actually do anything is another question…

He forgets to get into a limo that’s right in front of him. Chances he’ll remember the codes?

Id just give the dvla what they want, say nothing about it to the ex, and move on!

Rise above it and as the old saying goes, it is not about what happens to you but how you react to what happens.

Id just give the dvla what they want

A pound of flesh in my experience..

+1 on not letting anyone (else) know atm.

Doing the same back to her is “lowering yourself to her level” etc. but if she’s as highly strung as it sounds then I doubt she could contain herself and your suspicions could be confirmed either way.

Letting it lie is certainly the less stressful and easier-to-move-on-from approach though.

I’m with DrP on this.

If you’re demonstrably fit to drive then there’s no harm in being flagged up so long as “the authorities” handle it sensibly – it should be easy to satisfy concerns. If you can’t, then you were right to be flagged up.

Have to go through this every 3 years. Type 1 diabetic 🙂

That’s a pretty crazy system. Vichy France, Stasi, KGB, DVLC… .

That’s a bit of a leap. Basically the alternative is you’re told “We’ve had a tip-off, we’re taking away your license”. How would you ensure people who had conditions that severely impaired their driving are dealt with?

If worried about a relative’s fitness to drive, a reasonable test might be whether or not you are happy for them to drive your young children/nephews etc around. If not then worth discussing with them, and if they still don’t recognise there might be an issue, then that is the time to ask the DVLA for guidance. Currently the way to do that is FOR YOU TO to notify/discuss with the DVLA directly ie “shop them in”. Informing the GP may be helpful, but doesn’t remove the onus on you to report to the DVLA.
IIRC 5-6 die a day on UK roads, 60-70 have life changing injuries.

A friend of mine had a similar quandary with his FIL. Epileptic (quite badly) but refusing to take his medication for some reason the family couldn’t discern. I told my friend that if his FIL had an accident and killed/hurt others and/or himself, it was on the immediate family as well as on him. He decided to contact the DVLA ultimately and keep that to himself (enough of the wider circle knew he had this problem).

My grandparents neighbour had a similar problem and luckily “only” killed himself when he had a seizure whilst driving but my grandfather, in particular, regretted not doing something about it sooner.