Thousands of motorists are at risk of being fined up to
£1,000 because they are unwittingly driving without a valid
licence.
They risk prosecution after failing to spot the extremely
small print on their photocard licence which says it
automatically expires after 10 years and has to be renewed -
even though drivers are licensed to drive until the age of
70. The fiasco has come to light a decade after the first
batch of photo licences was issued in July 1998, just as
they start to expire.
Motoring organisations blamed the Government for the fiasco
and said 'most' drivers believed their licences were for
life. A mock-up driving licence from 1998 when the
photocards were launched shows the imminent expiry date as
item '4b'. They said officials had failed to publicise
sufficiently the fact that new-style licences - unlike the
old paper ones - expire after a set period and have to be
renewed.
To rub salt into wounds, drivers will have to pay
£17.50 to renew
their card - a charge which critics have condemned as a
'stealth tax' and which will earn the Treasury an estimated
£437million over 25 years. Official DVLA figures reveal that
while 16,136 expired this summer, so far only 11,566 drivers
have renewed, leaving 4,570 outstanding. With another
300,000 photocard licences due to expire over the coming
year, experts fear the number of invalid licences will soar,
putting thousands more drivers in breach of the law and at
risk of a fine.
At the heart of the confusion is the small print on the tiny
credit-card-size photo licence, which is used in conjunction
with the paper version.
4b: The small
print on the back of the driving licence is easy to miss,
just below the driver name on the front of the photocard
licence is a series of dates and details - each one
numbered.
Number 4b features a date in tiny writing, but no explicit
explanation as to what it means. The date's significance is
only explained if the driver turns over the card and reads
the key on the back which states that
'4b' means 'licence
valid to'.
Even more confusingly, an adjacent table on the rear of the
card sets out how long the driver is registered to hold a
licence - that is until his or her 70th birthday.
A total of 25million new-style licences have been issued but
- motoring experts say - drivers were never sufficiently
warned they would expire after 10 years.
The DVLA said failure to update the photocard after 10 years
fell into the same category as failing to inform them of a
change of address.
CHECK YOUR LICENCE EXPIRY DATE!!!