u.k driving licence

[kermit]

Turning into an interesting one this with some good points of view coming out to play.

For info, no, I don't work for the government. I do, however, get frustrated when people complain about having to pay for services and then declare it to be a 'tax'. I simply don't understand why people think everything should be given to them for free when it costs somebody money to do it.

Whilst licence cards may indeed cost £1 to make, it is more than the physical license you are paying for. There are the distribution costs, admin fees, people's wages etc. all to be considered. Yes, licenses may have been free a few years ago, but they were made of paper then, cost diddly squat and didn't have all the associated services and features they do now.

In this day and age people are increasingly paranoid about identity theft. I'd wager that a photo/hologram license card is a whole lot more difficult tpo forge than a piece of green and pink paper.

I'm also guessing that we get mightily disgruntled at the idea of untaxed/uninsured/unlicensed drivers being on our roads (we pay, so why shouldn't thay). Through the DVLA, records are kept of cars/owners/road tax and license holders. All this info needs collating, sorting and using to crack down on the scum that feel they can use our road system with impunity and without responsibility. These processes all require people to be employed and, therefore, cost money.

So there you go - two more benefits of paying for your driving license.

I can sympathise with your angle though Stig - if you#ve been promised free licenses then that is what you should expect. I, however, have never been given such assurances so am happy to accept that there will be costs associated with the DVLA providing me with a new license.

Mike.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Alan A

Stig is that letter stamped with your name or a general circula.

Addressed to me personally

[Stig]

Nothing is given to anyone for free in this country there is income tax ,national insurance ,V.A.T. ,fuel duty the list of just what you pay tax on though finite is a long long list. Therefore as you also have to pay road tax on your car nothing is for free and in this case people are not asking for something for free they are asking for something that they have already paid for and the powers that be want them to pay for it again .

I shall put things in a different manner if you joined a fishing club that owned Boothsmere,Capesthorne main ,Dovemere, Redesmere Colemere,Thorney croft and Top pool . Now this club has these waters but no one ever fishes Top pool so you and a few of your mates get together and the club says for a one off fee of 5 grand you can form your own syndicate of club members and these are the only people who can fish Top poolfor the next 30 years.
A few years go by and you lose interest in top pool and nobody has fished it for a few years in which time it has blossomed into a top quality fishery containing a large head of fish in the 20 and 30 pound mark with 7 fish over 40 and 3 over 50 . The club and the members find out about this and the club then make a ruling that in addition to paying your £100 club subs you also have to pay an additional £50 to fish Top pool but you and your mates have already paid to fish Top pool for 30 years of which there are 23 left ... would you be willing to pay £50 for something you already own


All the people employed by DVLA may be so but from those of us who have paid the 1 off licence for life have already paid our dues and it is not our fault that successive governments in attempts to buy general elections by cutting income tax have to find the revenue lost by those tax cuts from elsewhere do so as usual by duping the public by charging them again for something they have already paid for .

In answer to you sympathising with me as i was promised a free licence for life i was not the only one who was all of you who have had a paper licence have also paid for your licence until you are 70 the first year this was done was 1979 or 1980 i know this as i got my 1st driving licence when i was 16 back in 1980 for my 50cc bike and this licence for life continued until the advent of the photo licence which came in when about 8 or 10 years ago . If enough people complain to their MPs then they will have to take notice of this what can called nothing less than legalised fraud

[Digit]

Oooh imagine if you was a truck driver like myself and every 5 years had to renew your digi tacho at a cost of £38 Just imagine..........
And then next year when every truck driver by october has got to have his own c.p.c oooh imagine then.
Sorry mate but is it really something to moan about..............

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by Damien gee

Oooh imagine if you was a truck driver like myself and every 5 years had to renew your digi tacho at a cost of £38 Just imagine..........
And then next year when every truck driver by october has got to have his own c.p.c oooh imagine then.
Sorry mate but is it really something to moan about..............

Hello Damien
Its not just drivers there mate
I am a qualified scaffolder when i passed all my courses (3 Years plus training) i was issued with a scaffolding card valid for my working career, this soon changed and must know be renewed every 3 years cost £35, if not renewed it is cancelled and they will then state to any potential employer that you are not qualified to hold that position. These are all money generating schemes brought in to generate extra revenue for the governing bodies involved and yes can be looked at as a work tax. It is happening to more and more workers in various occupations and they know you will have to pay for it, as how many people can say i am not paying then sit out of work for a long period.
Regards Alan

[kermit]

Originally Posted by Alan A

Hello Damien
Its not just drivers there mate
I am a qualified scaffolder when i passed all my courses (3 Years plus training) i was issued with a scaffolding card valid for my working career, this soon changed and must know be renewed every 3 years cost £35, if not renewed it is cancelled and they will then state to any potential employer that you are not qualified to hold that position.

Surely the requirement to renew your scaffolding qualifications is to ensure that you remain competent to undertake your job and, thus ensures the ongoing safety and welfare of fellow site workers and the genral public? I am assuming that you need to prove your competence at 3-year intervals, or at the very least this renewal process would make it more difficult to lie about and/or forge qualifications.

If renewing your quals. every 3 years prevents you working with people who may be responsible for injuring or killing you and your colleagues through their incompetence then £35 sounds reasonable to me.

Mike.

[mul]

Originally Posted by kermit

Mul - my comparison was based on the annual cost of a car license which, works out at £1.75 per year. Not sure why you don#t think it's a valid comparison with £24 a year to fish? They're both on a per annum basis.

Mike.

Well you can divide two values by a number of years and get a value per year........ but the point I was making is that you are paying for two different things. One cost is that of being able to legally fish over the period of a year. The other is what I see as a totally inflated, forced (and most likely, sneakily profit making) cost of administration.

You don't work for the DVLA Licence Renewals Dept do you?

[richk]

Some info on the DVLA...Make your own minds up.....

The Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has made more than £9m by selling motorists' personal details. For £2.50, car parking and clamping firms can buy personal records of motorists staying too long on their property.

The DVLA has earned £9m through the practice since 2002. In 2007 alone, it pulled £3.7m by selling the names and addresses of more than 1.3 million registered vehicle owners to private companies.

As well as paying £2.50 for an individual's details, which is done by applying in writing, firms can also pay a one off £3,000 fee to access its database online making it easier to obtain the information

Actual figures for number of details sold onto private companies by year

2002-03 868,385
2003-04 889,663
2004-05 960,560
2005-06 1,264,284
2006-07 1,343,903

The DVLA has been criticised by consumer group magazine "Which" for using an expensive 0870 helpline number without providing a cheaper eographically bound equivalent. They made in excess of £3.4 million from its 0870 number in the last financial year, earning more money the longer the customer stays on the line.

The DVLA has remained tight-lipped about their geographical equivalent telephone number - as yet there is no equivalent and the government body will not be specific regarding the date of introduction of such a number.

ONE of Britain’s leading road safety groups is calling for a three-day auction of number plates by the Swansea-based DVLA this week to be scrapped. . . and for the agency to be investigated.

Andrew McGavin who runs online campaign group BetterDrivingPlease.com believes the DVLA is compromising public safety and breaking its own mission statement by selling plates which are only of value if illegally altered

And one thing that is not available in the Public Domain is what the Sales and Profit figures are from these auctions.

Its clear to see that the DVLA is being operated as a Business and is there to maintain and increase its Profits year on year.

[kermit]

Originally Posted by mul

You don't work for the DVLA Licence Renewals Dept do you?

Nope - but by the sound of RichK's post I wish I did - I'd be minted. The Basia's would be on me!

Mike.

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by kermit

Surely the requirement to renew your scaffolding qualifications is to ensure that you remain competent to undertake your job and, thus ensures the ongoing safety and welfare of fellow site workers and the genral public? I am assuming that you need to prove your competence at 3-year intervals, or at the very least this renewal process would make it more difficult to lie about and/or forge qualifications.

If renewing your quals. every 3 years prevents you working with people who may be responsible for injuring or killing you and your colleagues through their incompetence then £35 sounds reasonable to me.

Mike.

There are no checks made and no review of your competence to do the job in hand. Just fill out a form sign the bottom pay your money hey presto new card arrives and is good for another 3 years.
If they did check competency and this was the reason i would back that all the way.
But as it stands it is purely a money spinner for them, does this still sound right to you.
Regards Alan
P.S
I am glad that all that boll---s is well in the past

[kermit]

Originally Posted by Alan A

There are no checks made and no review of your competence to do the job in hand. Just fill out a form sign the bottom pay your money hey presto new card arrives and is good for another 3 years.
If they did check competency and this was the reason i would back that all the way.
But as it stands it is purely a money spinner for them, does this still sound right to you.
Regards Alan
P.S
I am glad that all that boll---s is well in the past

Sounds like a missed opportunity to maintian competence within the industry, which is a bad thing! I guess the only benefit in renewing every 3 years is it helps to cut out the forgeries a bit more regularly?

Out of interest, what do you have to do in the scaffolding industry to prove competence? Is there any requirement to do so, or is it considered a 'skill for life' once you're trained?

Mike.

PS i'm afraid you've lost me on the Boll---s comment there Alan. What were you referring to?

[richk]

All these Government Agencies and bodies are run purely as a Business to generate income for the Government and I begrudge paying a penny for a replacement/renew driving licence when they are happy to Squander Millions of our taxes on bad investments and other waste of money projects...Here are a few examples.....

£2bn has been lost in tax credit fraud or errors.

£2.3bn refurbishing civilian offices of MOD

Department of Work and Pensions has wasted £300m on two cancelled IT projects In 5 years the DWP managed to spend £2.14bn on IT projects, both ongoing and cancelled, with over £500m going to consultants alone.

140m on a system designed to streamline payment of benefits which was shelved because it never worked.

77m on an IT system meant to clear the backlog of immigration casework which was shelved because it missed deadlines.

The MOD scrapped a computer inventory scheme before it was introduced at a cost of £118m and a further £77m on a radar system for the Harrier before it was decided to withdraw it from service.

The MOD also wrote off £118m on a failed inventory IT project (DSMS). In fact, the MOD may end up writing of over £3bn for a programme to upgrade RAF Nimrods, a plane that is built on the 1950’s Comet airframe and almost certainly with a very limited lifespan.

So there you have it just a few of my reasons why I think we should not have to pay to renew a Driving Licence.

[Alan A]

PS i'm afraid you've lost me on the Boll---s comment there Alan. What were you referring to?

Thats all the new ways they keep dreaming up to generate axtra income. Different bodies insisting on the same courses but from different agencies meaning you have to pay for several courses that are identical but are stamped by a different governing body gets quite costly.
The only way to get a fake card is to have someone enter it on the citb system (employers check the database to make sure cards are registered) which means one of the training sites doing it for you. I am aware of this happening to quite a degree in some places. But once its entered they can renew the card the same as a competent person.
Regards Alan

[Bebbo]

HGV Class 1 on your licence and it will only do 5 years before renewal and the required medical to renew it sets you back about £90-100 plus the licence cost as well

[kermit]

Originally Posted by Bebbo

HGV Class 1 on your licence and it will only do 5 years before renewal and the required medical to renew it sets you back about £90-100 plus the licence cost as well

I hope you don't take offence here Bebbo, but I'm really, really struggling to comprehend the above comment.

You've just complained that, as part of the renewal process, HGV drivers must pay to have a qualified medical professional undertake an examination to ensure that the driver is physically able to drive their lorry in a safe manner.

These are the drivers that hurtle along our nation's roads in 40 tonne lumps of metal, a matter of inches away from you, me and our friends and families. I simply don't understand how anyone could possibly have a problem with this?

Mike.