Ms Gooner 1

Just had an e-mail (which is far too long to copy LOL) - but in short - it has come to the attention of the "laws that be" that the first few batches of photocard driving licences have expiry dates on them - mine for instance expires in february 2010 .

"Official DVLA figures reveal that while 16,136 expired this summer, so far only 11,566 drivers have renewed, leaving 4,570 outstanding"

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

Just thought that you might like to check

RA Dunk

still got my old paper one lol

PaulC72

I heard this the last week too, I was amazed they expire {except the usual age expiry thing} but they have said 10 years is the validity period of them.. the paper ones have no expiry, another hidden cost for those trying to keep up with the system.

Steve_PPP

iTrader: (3)

dvla sent me a letter last month giving me 3 or 4 weeks notice of mine expiring - had to fill in the form and send them a new photo, had a shiny new one back within a week.

Just annoying that they charge you an admin fee of £17.50 to renew it. Its not like i have any choice is it!? If i want my driving licence, i'm forced to pay it

scoobyboy

so do the replacements have expiry dates on them?

jjones

double check you have all of your entitlements on them when you get the new one. have heard of people having to retake bike test as the replacement had not got the entitlement on - then if you don't notice for a period of time dvla claim that they have no record.....

SirFozzalot

It's the same as passports, they think your appearance can change enough in 10 years that you need to update the photo.

Markus

Yes, I would expect the replacements have the same expiry on them, ie; 10 years.

Part of the problem, as it were, is that the number on the front of the card does not have a prefix indicating it's an expiry date, it simply has some reference, think it's something like 4b DD/MM/YYYY - on the back of the card it does state that 4b = Expiry date. Quite why they could not have just put something like 4b EXP DD/MM/YYYY on it I don't know, there is enough space for the three extra characters, and it would have removed some confusion.

I know for my licence (Ontario, Canada) that I do get sent a renewal letter when it's going to expire, which helps. I get the impression that the DVLA has not or does not send out reminder letters, which is rather poor if true.