{"id":6876,"date":"2014-11-25T14:57:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T14:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=6876"},"modified":"2014-12-22T14:11:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T14:11:49","slug":"dvla-to-abolish-paper-element-of-driving-licence-in-january-2015-before-substitute-is-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/6876","title":{"rendered":"DVLA to abolish paper element of driving licence in January 2015 — before substitute is ready"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 22\/12\/2014:\u00a0<\/strong>The deadline for the removal of the paper counterpart has now been extended until 8 June 2015. See here<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n

The current UK driving licence consists of a photocard, together with a paper counterpart — but this is set to change in January 2015, when the paper counterpart will be abolished.<\/p>\n

Although this has been known about for some time, I haven’t seen a lot of publicity about\u00a0it.\u00a0For car and van rental customers, however, it is relevant.<\/p>\n

Here’s why.<\/p>\n

You will no longer need to provide\u00a0the\u00a0paper counterpart of your driving licence when you pick up a hired van or car. That’s the good news, and \u00a0in the long run, this seems like a sensible move.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, as you might expect, the replacment solution involves a new\u00a0DVLA\u00a0online service.\u00a0As you might also expect, from a government-funded IT project, it may\u00a0not be ready in time.<\/p>\n

If the new service, known as Share My Driving Record (SMDR), isn’t ready in time,\u00a0the\u00a0hire company may\u00a0need to use the DVLA’s existing driver data\u00a0service to check\u00a0for details\u00a0of points on your licence, recent convictions, and entitlement categories. This is quite expensive — current costs are 51p\/minute by telephone or \u00a31.50 per enquiry via a dedicated electronic connection.<\/p>\n

Given that there are 10 million\u00a0rentals a year in the UK, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Asssociation, this could add up to a sizeable cost for hire companies, until the DVLA gets it IT act together.<\/p>\n

What do I need to do?<\/h3>\n

Let’s hope I’m wrong, and SMDR is ready in time. However, as it probably won’t be, then if you are planning to hire a van (or any other vehicle) early in 2015,\u00a0I’d suggest three things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Take your paper counterpart along regardless of whether it has been abolished, just in case it’s still useful.<\/li>\n
  2. Be prepared for some delay and confusion while the hire company\u00a0checks your\u00a0driver data.<\/li>\n
  3. Be prepared to pay\u00a0any of the resulting licence verification costs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Although abolishing the paper counterpart seems like a good idea in principle, this looks set to be yet another\u00a0poorly-planned piece of government red tape cutting that could actually cause more hassle for customers and small businesses, rather than less. Let’s just hope I’m wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    DVLA plans to abolish the driving licence paper counterpart in January 2015 could cause problems for hire companies, as a new online system to provide easy access to driver data is not yet ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[1889,577],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6959,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions\/6959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}