THE DVLA. What a Waist of time.

[santadawes]

Last week, my daughters boyfriend was stopped by the local traffic police. They say everybody wasn't wearing seatbelts, but everybody was. As my daughters boyfriend is halfcast, he thinks that they stopped him because of his colour/race. He must
have given the police some lip because they decided to "do a check" on him. According to DVLA "Paul" isn't recognised on their computer. Although he's been driving for over 30 years. He passed his test and obtained a paper licence (old style), but failed to noteify them when he moved house to the other side of town some 20 odd years ago. Paul has held driving jobs, Hired rented vehicles, obtained a passport and even opened bank accounts. All of which you must show some sort of ID, so a driving licence is one of the first formes of ID you would use. Paul, thinks that when he lost his wallet containing his wages, licence, and bank cards some years ago he had failed to notify the DVLA.
Now faced with not being on the DVLA computer paul has had his car impounded and would need to retake a full driving test and obtain another licence. Two days after having his car impounded a documentry on tv was highlighting the fact that DVLA have lost details of over 135 other drivers and motor bike riders when they changed over their computer systems.
We have tried looking for his licence at his home. We have gone to the local bank and asked if they took a photocopy of his licence and any other ID, but both the bank and the passport office failed to help him. His solicitor say's he hasn't got a leg to stand on if he can't prove he owns a valid licence.
Since then, Paul has had to give his job up, rely on other people to help ferry him around on hospital appointments and doctors etc. His car has been crushed as no one can get his car out of the pound because of the clause in the insurance.
Has anybody else had this sort of problem with the DVLA?

[bmcecosse]

Crikey! I suggest getting one of the newspapers to take up the story. D Express springs to mind!!

[badobsession]

it is a worrying trend if they cant find you on a list/ computer then you do not exist .

i found this out last time i went to tax one of my vans on line
it told me no insurance was found for this van
phoned up the insurance company the next day to check
and it was insured , then went back on line to do the tax thing
and once more no insurance found , back to the insurance company
and they could do nothing about it as it is a 3rd party that puts the info on
the internet /police computer.
i had no choice but to go to the post office and tax the van

thing is what if i was stopped at 9pm one night by the police and they did a check
on the van it would have come back with no insurance and no matter what i told them they would have
impounded it with all the hassle it would have caused .all because some one had not put it on a list.......

[PSL184]

It is not down to Paul to prove he has a licence - it is down to the Police to prove, without reasonable doubt, that he doesn't have a license. Start by going back to the place he took his test and check their records and then search some more for the license at home. Then, when the case is thrown out, sue the Police for his loss of vehicle and loss of earnings.....

[MarkyB]

If his name isn't on the database that's probably proof enough for the police.
How many man hours should they use up checking every story they are told?
He hasn't done himself any favours by not replacing his license or notifying the DVLA of address change either. This saga need never have got to this stage if he had.
A quick search suggests there are 38 million people holding UK driving licenses, if they only missed 135 people when they changed systems I'd say they'd done a pretty good job.
My understanding is that some people didn't get their full bike licence entitlement transferred when the new licenses came in.

How were the passport office ever going to help him?

If he can prove he's got a license then the best luck to him in getting all the bad stuff reversed .

[Blaketon]

I think this is a reminder to everyone to be careful with things like this. You don't have to look far into any large organisation to find things going askew as a result of red tape and rules written for the obedience of fools, jobsworths, flow charts or incompetence. I am in the process of changing bank accounts as a result of this and am sorting out the changes in regular payments myself. Despite sending letters to various places, giving full details of my new account and when the change is to be actioned, some have still written back asking why my STO/DDR has been cancelled. You feel like asking them which bit of the last letter they didn’t understand .

Whilst I have to say that I feel Paul has been remiss, I would also question why the DVLA haven’t got a record of his licence, at the last address they held for him. Surely the Data Protection Act would require them to keep up to date records (Which as far as they are concerned would be the last address they held). Whether previous employers have any records is perhaps a long shot and previous car hire firms an even longer one (All are required to have sight of a licence and I’m sure when I have hired vehicles, details of my license were recorded).

I don’t think it is a legal requirement to carry a driving licence these days whilst driving (Any Police members my wish to confirm or correct), so I don’t. I leave it at home in a small wall safe, with other important items, where they cannot fall foul of my bad memory!!! When sending anything like that away, for any reason, take a photocopy of the original, just in case!!!

[bmcecosse]

Is there any way for us to check if we are on DVLA records ? We can check our cars for tax/MOT/Insurance - but can we check ourselves??

[les]

How could Paul hire a car without his licence? If someone has a licence I can't believe there is no trace!

[santadawes]

Paul had met up with his brother on the weekend. They spoke about the problem and seems to remember that in the news a while ago, a report that DVLA had miss laid some discs containing infomation on drivers details. we also found out that he could sign something stating that he's a quallified driver and then they issue another licence. With this in mind we intend going to Cardiff, and seeing if they can trace his licence. Lets hope.

[rayofleamington]

I'd have to say this is the second time I've seen someone get completely roughed over because they didn't keep their own records up to date. Having a paper license with the wrong address for 20 years is not the best way to protect yourself.
These days insurance companies have started asking for a copy of your license and/or permission to check it is valid with the DVLA - and I can't blame them as too many people are taking liberties.

Whilst I feel sorry for the guy and have myself been the victim of database errors (also leading to being unable to use a car for a while but at least only temporary) I'd have to say it's worth while to try and keep EVERYTHING up to date.

Once you miss something, you can "dissapear off the records" and for a friend of mine this nearly cost him his sanity, lt alone it cost him his house and a year of his life.

[polo2k]

well, just over 12 months ago, I was paul!
my daily driver was due for its insurance renewal so I went through all the paper work and filled everything in (its modified so takes a while). Usually when I do my insurance I copy my licence and send it off. I was feeling lazy this particular day and they offer to check the licence with just the number and a £5 fee, so I did that.
As I was coming to the end of a work day I got a call from my insurers telling me that my insurance would be cancelled as of midnight as my licence is not known. I called the DVLA and there were some errors on my part (unchanged address) however for some reason 7 years prior my licence had been revoked, they do not know why as they delete all records or revocation after 5 years! GRRR!!!
Luckily my situation did not involve the car being impounded etc.
the strange thing is that during this period I had used my licence for various official documents and been stopped by the police on various occasions when my licence was checked and came back "no points of endorsements". To double check this I called the local police station to check, according to the PNC my licence was all present and correct. I was never informed of the endorsements I received or why I received them!
I called the DLVA and explained all this to them. Their answer was that "its our computer and our decision is final". Not good I tried to contact watch dog as there were a few other publicised occurrences or this around the same time but to no avail.
In the end I decided that life is too short to convince the dvla that they were wrong. on another note its good to have a refresher course. It is expensive to redo tests, its frustrating and unfair but its life.
To speed up getting back on the road a CBT licence is a much quicker way to get on the road while jumping through all the hoops.

On the plus side I am still with the same insurer and they have decided to honour my full no claims discount

is the licence a valid ID since there are so many mistakes?
CHANGE Addresses.

[santadawes]

Thanks for that Ash. I will pass this onto Paul and let him take it from there. He has now been able to find an old employer and has asked if they would carry any records from way back. He's now hoping to hear from them soon.
Like you said "It's Life". and Life must go on....
Raymond.

[RobMoore]

I've heard of things like this happening before, it's harsh and not nice. The police should have goven more time before crushing the car or allowed for it to be collected by recovery.

[santadawes]

A few of us tried to collect it fron the compound but when we went along to the Police station, we had our driving licences and fully comp insurance papers but failed to notice the small print on it stating that you can not recover any vehicle that has been impounded by the police. Only the person (Paul) could get it recovered with proof of his licence. After 10 days it get's cubed.