renew photocard license

flopsy1973

hi
My photocard license expired last year and i have had a letter from dvla to renew it.This is just a moneymaking exercise again for them !!which annoys me. It states you can be fined up to £1000 if you do not replace it ?? what have others experienced is this likely if you are ever pulled over or are they just going to tell you its expired and you need to replace ???
i really dont want to renew this unless i really must

thanks

Lovelyjoolz

Yes, it's a nice little moneyspinner or "stealth tax" if you prefer.

And yes, you can be fined £1,000. Apparently. But I don't know anyone it as happened to.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

They don't need to see the photo licence to know you haven't renewed it. DVLA will give you a grace period and then you'll be on the next computer run for a fine, easy money.

sarahg1969

The likelihood of a fine is very, very slim indeed. I believe the DVLA will say they do not issue the fines - it is a police issue - and they hold no details on how many people have been fined. The CPS have five prosecutions recorded. It's certainly not done by a computer run as with road tax.

By the way, mine expired in August 2011 and I've not been pursued by anyone yet. And the police have seen my licence.

System

Plus if you do not renew it then any licence check at the side of the road will indicate this and you will be committing an offence under sect 87 of the Road Traffic act

Driving a motor vehicle otherwise than in accordance with a licence authorising you to drive a motor vehicle of that class.
Contrary to section 87(1) of the RTA 1988 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988

Sect 99 states that both parts of a licence need to be valid I.E. photocaqrd needs to be in date

sarahg1969

Your entitlement to drive is not cancelled by expiry of the photograph, as you will see by the date on the back of the photo card. There are separate dates for the photo and entitlement to drive.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

sarahg1969 wrote: »

The likelihood of a fine is very, very slim indeed. I believe the DVLA will say they do not issue the fines - it is a police issue - and they hold no details on how many people have been fined. The CPS have five prosecutions recorded. It's certainly not done by a computer run as with road tax.

By the way, mine expired in August 2011 and I've not been pursued by anyone yet. And the police have seen my licence.

With a few billion in potential fines sitting there motivating the Government to act, and all you need to do is find some minor correction to change it for free, why resist?

The photo ids only relatively recently started expiring in large numbers. They are now about to phase out paper vehicle excise duty discs because the electronic check is trivial, MOTs are now electronic, it is purely a matter of time before they change how they operate.

sarahg1969

I've not resisted. Just not got round to it.

Aretnap

!!!!!! wrote: »

Plus if you do not renew it then any licence check at the side of the road will indicate this and you will be committing an offence under sect 87 of the Road Traffic act

Sect 99 states that both parts of a licence need to be valid I.E. photocaqrd needs to be in date

No, section 99 says that you have to surrender the licence when the photocard expires. However the licence remains in force until you actually do surrender it. The offence you commit is under section 99(5) of the RTA and is on the same footing as failing to update your licence when ou change address (also a s99(5) offence) - you commit an offence by not updating it, but you don't commit a further offence by driving having failed to update it.

AdrianC

IanMSpencer wrote: »

The photo ids only relatively recently started expiring in large numbers.

Every driving licence issued since 1998 - change of address, new licence, whatever - has been a photocard. So they've been expiring for six years now. It won't be long before the first renewals are being renewed. As of next year, the non-photocard licences will cease to be valid.

"Stealth tax"? C'mon... The UK was about the last country in the world not to have photocard licences. The Gov't didn't just decide it'd be a nice money-spinner, it was a requirement as part of the EU standardisation of licences (cue cries of "See what we mean?" from the UKIP lobby...)

It makes an immense amount of sense to have the driver's photo on the licence, to stop it being fraudulently misused - and, given that somebody could be issued a licence at 17 and never have it re-issued until 70, that photo has to be renewed periodically. Once a decade's hardly unrealistic. Same interval as passports (and the photo from that is used if it's recent), etc etc.

flopsy1973

yes they may use the same passport pic but they still want to extort £20 for it ,and the cost of motoring is allready high
so would i be fined in theory if i was stopped tomorrow or would i just be told to renew it ?