Driving licence nightmare

[remlapeel]

Hey guys, thought I would share my story about my technically now revoked driving licence.

Ok, story starts with a simple speeding fine. 39 in a 30. Which as I'm sure you all know if either 3 points and £60 fine or a speed awareness course.

Unless you have a long sequence of unfortunate events that it.

I own a franchise of Specsavers and lease my car through VWFS. The way my head office work their finances is to charge it all to a main account and then distribute the charges out to the store. This means technically head office lease the car, not me.

So when I was caught speeding the fine was sent to my head office, not me. By the time to took to get to me, the conditional offer of the points or the awareness course had passed and I was reported to court...yay!

Now I pleaded guilty by post and was given 4 points and a fine for my trouble. (First fine or points on my licence).

The day the court fine and DVLA letter was sent to me I was on holiday in France and was given 28 days to pay and return my license to the DVLA before it got revoked. By the time I returned from France, that time frame was down to 18 days.

Las soon as I realised I sent my licence and paid the fine.

So I thought it was all sorted. I was wrong. 

Yesterday I received a letter from the DVLA saying I had not returned my licence within the time frame and my licence will be revoked from the 18/04/15 until I return it. Obviously I called them straight up and explained it had been returned and it was a mistake. I gave them the post office tracking number and assumed it would all disappear.

Nope, they then explained that because of the bank holidays, there processing teams were running behind and can take up to 3 weeks to process the return of my licence so I could not drive until that has happened. (The letter does NOT mention processing time) and to make it worse, because I had called them, my licence was revoked from that day and not the 18th......

So currently don't technically have a licence because the DVLA are incompetent, with a new R being delivered next Friday.......


After a few hours research I have found a work around using  Section 88 of the road traffic act which means I can drive until my licence is returned, but still!

All for a speeding fine!

[mcmaddy]

Your supposed to still get the same time frame for a speed awareness course but you need to write and explain its a leased car. We get them all the time at work and loads of people have written or phoned the issuing police authority and got the speed course.

[monkeyhanger]

Your supposed to still get the same time frame for a speed awareness course but you need to write and explain its a leased car. We get them all the time at work and loads of people have written or phoned the issuing police authority and got the speed course.

I suppose the trick is though, knowing you've been caught or suspecting you've been caught to ring up the issuing Police authority and cut out all those notification middle-men. So many layers of ownership/responsibility in the notification process is going to make things tricky if the people higher up in the notification chain are slow to notify.

It's a pity that there isn't a flag for Police to easily see that it's a lease and allow more time to respond accordingly,or that with proof of late notification, the original offer of 3 points/fine or speed awareness course is still available. The main issue here is Spec-Savers head office being slow to inform the intended recipient (the driver).

Would 39 in a 30 zone get you a speed awareness course? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't as the margin over the limit is too high. Under Northumbria Police (different rules for other Police forces?), 37 in a 30 will get you on a course, 38 will get you no offer of a course, just a fine and 3 points. 8 people at my place of work got caught in a mobile trap close to work in just one day. Everyone 37 and below got offered the course, 2 people above 37mph did not.

[remlapeel]

Yeah it was part of the correspondence I did finally receive stating that was the original offer. I have paid the fine and accepted the points, as it has no bearing on insurance because I put it through th business anyway. It's just the incompetence of the DVLA not doing their jobs properly.

[monkeyhanger]

It's just the incompetence of the DVLA not doing their jobs properly.

I'd say it was more Specsavers Head office's fault for not informing you in a timely fashion of your offence (on the assumption that the Police informed them within the 14 day limit) to allow you to take them up on their original punishment offer.

DVLA's backlog should not be your concern though if you can demonstrate through postal tracking that they received your license in good time.

Ultimately you shouldn't have been speeding (or shouldn't have been caught!), but I bet there aren't many people out there with a clean license since the sneaky mobile units got started.

My Cousin is currently challenging a speeding fine. The mobile van that caught him was parked partially on a pedestrian path, partially on the road (on double yellow lines) - so the van itself was parked illegally when set up to catch speeders.

[remlapeel]

Mine was in a area with no safety concerns just an easy way of getting some cash from people. It's a dual carriageway at 40 that slower to 30 for a set of traffic lights, and they are sat on the 30mph sign. I had let off the pedal but obviously didn't drop to 30 before entering the zone.

I'm not contesting the fine, head office got a piece of my mind but ultimately I was I speeding so I paid up.

Revoking my licence because you can't process the licence quick enough is a piss take lol

[monkeyhanger]

Mine was in a area with no safety concerns just an easy way of getting some cash from people. It's a dual carriageway at 40 that slower to 30 for a set of traffic lights, and they are sat on the 30mph sign. I had let off the pedal but obviously didn't drop to 30 before entering the zone.

I'm not contesting the fine, head office got a piece of my mind but ultimately I was I speeding so I paid up.

Revoking my licence because you can't process the licence quick enough is a piss take lol

I got caught doing 46 in a 30 that was a 50 road until a few months before my offence (and I didn't use the road regularly). It was reduced because of a fatality on that road. The circumstances of the fatality?

A bloke was hit at about 80mph by a Police car with its blues and twos on while crossing a road at a light controlled crossing that allegedly had the green man on when the bloke was crossing.

[GrahamFR]

Mine was in a area with no safety concerns just an easy way of getting some cash from people. It's a dual carriageway at 40 that slower to 30 for a set of traffic lights, and they are sat on the 30mph sign. I had let off the pedal but obviously didn't drop to 30 before entering the zone.

I'm not contesting the fine, head office got a piece of my mind but ultimately I was I speeding so I paid up.

Revoking my licence because you can't process the licence quick enough is a piss take lol

I got caught doing 46 in a 30 that was a 50 road until a few months before my offence (and I didn't use the road regularly). It was reduced because of a fatality on that road. The circumstances of the fatality?

A bloke was hit at about 80mph by a Police car with its blues and twos on while crossing a road at a light controlled crossing that allegedly had the green man on when the bloke was crossing.

Bet the copper didnt get a speed awareness course, probably a paid holiday...

[Mark V GTD]

This business of a lease company being the Registered Keeper of a vehicle is just wrong. yes they may own it but any definition of registered keeper from DVLA points to the person who has day to day control of the vehicle (ie you)  being the keeper.

How do they get away with it?

[mcmaddy]

Matt, a girl i work with has just got a speed awareness course for 39 in a 30 and she was caught in northumbria.
you can still be the registered keeper of a car but not the owner and that's what happens with lease cars.