Why doesn't DVLA update car V5C with driver license change of address?

droopsnoot

securityguy wrote: »

"after all, if Eric Smith from 32 High Street Anytown has moved for his driving license, then surely he's moved for his V5C?"

So if you have a father and son with the same name, and the son moves, what happens? There's no date of birth on a V5C, so you can't disambiguate this position.

Yes, good point. Probably the reason it hasn't been done. I hadn't considered that people would do that - receiving post must be a nightmare while they're still living in the same place. Imagine the issues with distributing post addressed to "Ms K. Kardashian" and the like.

Although in section 6 of the V5C, new keepers details, there is a box for "Driving license number of the new keeper (not required by law)" so drivers can add that if they want to. I wonder if adding that information would have provided the link that the OP wanted. I've never filled it in.

jimjames

droopsnoot wrote: »

Although in section 6 of the V5C, new keepers details, there is a box for "Driving license number of the new keeper (not required by law)" so drivers can add that if they want to. I wonder if adding that information would have provided the link that the OP wanted. I've never filled it in.

As already pointed out, that wouldn't work as the keeper doesn't have to be a driver or even a person

sheramber

having a driving licence doesn't mean you are the registered keeper of any car. I have a licence and drive my husband's car but am not the registered owner.

My son had driving licence for ten years before he owned a car.

AdrianC

sheramber wrote: »

having a driving licence doesn't mean you are the registered keeper of any car. I have a licence and drive my husband's car but am not the registered owner.

My son had driving licence for ten years before he owned a car.

And vice-versa.

I bought, and became registered keeper of, my first car when I was 15.

droopsnoot

jimjames wrote: »

As already pointed out, that wouldn't work as the keeper doesn't have to be a driver or even a person

I understand that, that will be why the box is marked "not required by law". I just wondered if, had the OP linked their V5C to their driving license by filling in that box, whether the connection would have solved their problem. I doubt it, but perhaps the presence of that box signals an intention to do so in the future, where the link is present.

stator

Just because they couldn't automatically update the records in all cases doesn't mean it couldn't be done in the majority of cases. All they would need is to process the form twice. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't do it apart from laziness.

AdrianC

stator wrote: »

There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't do it apart from laziness.

Which is, of course, the sole reason why it would be needed in the first place.

droopsnoot

stator wrote: »

There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't do it apart from laziness.

Well, there's cost as well. Changing their systems to accommodate such a thing, no matter how well-meaning, would be expensive. No government-related IT project seems to be possible for a reasonable price.

Car_54

droopsnoot wrote: »

Well, there's cost as well. Changing their systems to accommodate such a thing, no matter how well-meaning, would be expensive. No government-related IT project seems to be possible for a reasonable price.

Exactly. Why should we spend public money to make life easier for those too stupid/lazy/disorganised* to use a diary?

* Delete as appropriate.

nottRobin

securityguy wrote: »

"after all, if Eric Smith from 32 High Street Anytown has moved for his driving license, then surely he's moved for his V5C?"

So if you have a father and son with the same name, and the son moves, what happens? There's no date of birth on a V5C, so you can't disambiguate this position.

The solution is simple: don't give your name to your son, it's confusing and egotistical.

Seriously though...

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

You don't work as a systems developer or integration specialist, do you?

I work in technical systems and this is not at all difficult to solve at the technical level.

If the DVLA had one integrated system, they should just attach some sort of unique identifier to individuals within their system (e.g. a "DVLA ID"), attach an address to that individual and link everything to that - the driving license, the V5C etc. Or, if it made sense, they could use the driving license number as the unique identifier. That design decision would be up to them, but either way such a system is trivial to design, and at the basic level, should be pretty easy to implement.

I'm sure the problem is that the DVLA doesn't have one integrated system, so they can't coordinate changes between the license registry and the V5C registry. Of course, any effort to make these systems easy to integrate (simple APIs etc.) would pay dividends way beyond this problem, but let's assume they can't touch the license registry. Even then, they could simply design the V5C system to take *either* a driving license number (in which case staff should go and manually look in the license registry to find the contact details) *or* in the rare case that the owner doesn't have a license, take the separate contact details of the owner. That should be much more trivial.

I'm sure there are further bureaucratic reasons why it's hard to change the format of the V5C form, and I don't know any of the technical details of the existing system, so the best solution might well look different from my suggestions. But for any systems designer, the linking of records, and especially contact details, really is one of the most basic problems to solve.

droopsnoot wrote: »

Well, there's cost as well. Changing their systems to accommodate such a thing, no matter how well-meaning, would be expensive. No government-related IT project seems to be possible for a reasonable price.

This is true, it would probably be expensive, just 'cos of the size of the bureaucratic machine. However, I bet the DVLA suffers many costs resulting from inaccurate records. I wonder if anyone's ever tried to quantify them? I would guess that a very large percentage of people forget to update their V5C records. Last time we moved house I made a concerted effort to update all my records, and while I remembered to update my driving license, I forgot my V5C.

This will cost either the DVLA or some other branch of government a *huge* amount of money in trying to track down the owners of vehicles for driving offences, dealing with the effects of bad drivers who should have lost their license but never knew it, the court costs of prosecuting people for not updating their details etc. etc.. I think just having a fine and saying "do it or else" is genuinely the laziest and least cost-effective way to solve this problem.

The best way to solve the problem is the obvious one - you should only have to tell the DVLA *once* of your change of address. I mean, ideally you should only have to tell the *government* once.

And as I've said, this is only difficult to do because of the bureaucracy of the system, and all it would take is someone with a decent architectural understanding of the problem and sufficient power to cut through the red tape to get it done, and it would save both the public and the government a lot of time and money.