Got a notification through a couple of weeks ago and then went on holiday, where i needed the licence to hire a car, i am now back and would rather wait till a few days after payday rather than send in the paperwork a few days before payday. A few days before is when the photo card expires.

I guess the DVLA could in theory issue fines automatically if you don’t renew the card, but do they in practice?

wouldn’t the issue be more that you’re breaking the law by driving without a valid licence?

wouldn’t the issue be more that you’re breaking the law by driving without a valid licence?

Who said anything about me driving? I know it sounds odd but the paperwork doesn’t say anything about driving, it just says renew licence or face £1000 fine. A case of if i don’t renew then does this invalidate the licence permanently/temporarily etc etc ?

[disclaimer]At a guess[/disclaimer] I doubt a few days will make a lot of difference, I’m sure they’ve got bigger issues to deal with

ah right, didn’t know there was actually a DVLA fine detailed. i’ve got no idea about any of that stuff, was just thinking about the risk of driving and sounds like that’s not an issue.

Surely the fine is related to a driving offence rather than possession, no?

You must get an up to date photo of yourself on your photo card licence because the one you have is due to or has run out.

By law you must do this every ten years. If you do not get a new photo you will be breaking the law and may have to pay a fine of up to £1000.

The bit from the form, i have no idea what law i might be breaking by possessing an out of date licence, Doesn’t say anything about driving with an out of date licence, just that possession is punishable.

What happens if you simply decide you don’t want to drive after you license expires?

it also says if you wish to give up your licence tick this box

Oh.

i got a letter before xmas reminding me mine had run out 18 months ago, i re newed it the next day on line,it came 2 days later without a fine !

send off the form but keep your old licence (just say you’ve lost it) – that way you can check you’ve the same entitlement on your new one

i got a letter before xmas reminding me mine had run out 18 months ago, i re newed it the next day on line,it came 2 days later without a fine !

Is the DVLA a govt agency? Now there’s effiency, look you.

send off the form but keep your old licence (just say you’ve lost it) – that way you can check you’ve the same entitlement on your new one

Already got a photo of my licence to check that, mind you i can’t loose much i have a fairly new licence so didn’t get a lot of the categories some seem to have.

mine was two years out of date when i renewed it. And that’s only after my dad mentioned something he’d read in the paper about people not knowing you had to.

Just be careful if renewing online, I was helping an elderly neighbour renew his online the other week and all went well until very near then end when we realised that by renewing online he would be losing a load of his entitlements to drive!

We quickly gave that up as although he’s nearly 80, he still drives a van and wants to tow large trailers occasionally.

Well I have said this before on here …. I left mine a year before I renewed it and didn’t get a fine.
Guess I was just lucky 🙂

Fine will be enforced by the police if they stop you – if you have to produce documents and the photo is out of date they’ll hit you with it!

Will do the same thing if you have moved and not changed address also…

I’ve still got a paper license. 🙂

Me too. Are we in trouble?

I believe not. It’ll be fine till it needs updating, say if we move house or something and then they’ll force a change to a photo card and all the revenue that generates for them. Mine doesn’t expire until 2036, I’m hoping to keep it till then. 😉

Nick.. having been stopped by the police on my bike, for a roadside check they were not in the least bothered it was 2 yrs out of date. Listening to the conversations with their colleagues doing the pnc check, this information was not on their computer. All they had access to was was the date of passing my test, birth date and categories I could drive etc.

They also said that the only person who could remove your entitlement was a magistrate or an arresting officer for drink driving or similar…. not the dvla alone.

The whole deal is a nasty scam locking you in to regular payments to update a photograph…. I think its a free change of address, but the picture card costs…

They also said that the only person who could remove your entitlement was a magistrate or an arresting officer for drink driving or similar…. not the dvla alone.

Yea, right…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/dvla_removing_license_entitlem.html

br, thats just your everyday govt department screw up… someone asleep when they should have been paying attention… but it would have been an interesting conversation with the police/insurance dept as a result of this screw up…. Guy passed his test, committed no crime except thinking the dvla would get it right…

agree, but I also met a m/c copper a few years ago who was doing exactly the same thing – test resit 😯

which is why I kept my old licence…

Always keep your old licence as the DVLA have a history of cocking up the categories on replacements. There are plenty of other stories of drivers loosing or even worse gaining categories.
I’m still on my paper version and also have a duplicate as I lost my original and then found it after the duplicate had been issued.

rickmeister – Member
Nick.. having been stopped by the police on my bike, for a roadside check they were not in the least bothered it was 2 yrs out of date. Listening to the conversations with their colleagues doing the pnc check, this information was not on their computer. All they had access to was was the date of passing my test, birth date and categories I could drive etc.

I think a lot of it depends on the copper doing the checking. I moved house about 6 years ago and never changed my license but was never stopped/got a producer/ticket etc in that time. The OH who is a copper recently told me she’d handed out a £1000 fine for a failure to change address, I got mine sorted PDQ!

I’m now due a photo card replacement, sent my license off to the DVLA with the money and a photo, they sent it back saying the photo was scratched (It wasn’t when I sent it.) Haven’t bothered to resend it yet…

The OH who is a copper recently told me she’d handed out a £1000 fine for a failure to change address

Are you sure she wasn’t winding you up?

My photo was due to expire last year, two months before the expiry I passed my LGV test and asked if I could update the photo early as they would be sending a new card anyway.

‘Yes, but you still have to pay the fee’!!!

No thanks then, I’ll let you sent me a brand new photocard, and then send me a reminder, and then I’ll grudgingly send you the cash with a new photo! And thats what happened…if I have to pay, I’m not going to waive two months of my license!

In the last five years, I’ve think I’ve had seven new cards, one change of address, 2 provisional categories added, three categories added, and the photo update 🙂

The OH who is a copper recently told me she’d handed out a £1000 fine for a failure to change address, I got mine sorted PDQ!

eh – she can not issue £1000 fines for anything, her job is to collect evidence and present it to the CPS (or Fiscal in Scotland) for prosecution, then the judge / magistrate / sheriff / JP decides on the fine. It would be very exceptional circumstances that this resulted in a £1000 fine (e.g. intentionally trying to avoid identification).

There are some offences where the police/cps can give the alleged offender the choice of a fixed penalty notice rather than going to court. You can not get a £1000 fixed penalty notice.

The OH who is a copper recently told me she’d handed out a £1000 fine for a failure to change address, I got mine sorted PDQ!

A case of “Your Nicked” (see what I did there), or love works in mysterious ways…