Over 70 Driving Licence Renewal

I have just got the application form for my second over 70's driving licence, the current one expires next March. As I have no special licences on top of my car and motorcycle ones, the form would have taken only 5 minutes to complete, but I decided to do it online which actually took longer. The main problem was remembering how long had I lived in the present house, and finding that rather than saving sending the form by post, I still have to cut up my present licence and post it to them.

Old Mart

Best wait until your new licence arrives before cutting up and returning the old one in case you have to produce it to police for any reason.

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 12/12/2021 15:32:08

In respect of cyclists, there is a set of traffic lights in the next village to us which have been modified with small repeater lights located about four feet off the ground on the supporting column of the traffic lights, similar to those seen on traffic lights in France but these repeaters are not in phase with the main lights at the top of the column. They carry cycle symbols on the lights and are presumably for the benefit of cyclists who take advantage of the red area at the threshold of the lights where cyclists are permitted to wait in front of other vehicles before starting to cross the junction, these repeaters change a matter of a few seconds before the main lights, I presume this is to allow cyclists a head start on crossing the junction, well I haven’t seen any official information regarding these extra lights and wonder how they are viewed in legal issues if an accident was to occur. Has anyone else seen these lights fitted to traffic light columns? Dave W

That had occurred to me also, but probably not as vital as in the days before the internet. At least I will be able to use the envelope provided with a slight change of postcode.

 If I had filled the form to renew by post, I would have had to include the current licence anyway, so the online method proved to be less efficient than snail mail.

Edited By old mart on 12/12/2021 16:21:09

It seems I was tempting fate with my above remarks.

I am now 21 days inside my 90 day notification period and as yet no reminder.

A week ago I contacted the CEO of the DVLA. It was a simple enquiry as to when I would receive my reminder. When I did not receive any form of a response I filled in an on-line Complaint a few days later. Which has now become a "Case". It looks like there is a judge and jury involved from this remark.

Considering the machine that sends out the reminders only needs to be fed paper and envelopes. I cannot quite see how their on-line blurb of an excuse, that Covid is to blame . Or may be their other excuse of industrial action is nearer the mark, and someone has really thrown a spanner in the works.

Personally I do not see me getting a reminder and I will have to go for Plan B. Get a form D1 from the Post Office and do it that way.

Anyone else inside their 90 day notification period?

Regards

Gray,

Hi Graham, I had to renew my photo licence middle of last month and a website says you get a reminder, but I didn't get one, even up to three days before my old one ran out. So I did it online anyway and it came the day before the old one did run out, but the start date is two days before. However I do have a current passport which does help, only thing is, I've got to renew it in summer next year when I become 70, but at least I shouldn't have to pay for that one.

Regards Nick.

All explained on the web and in the press Graham.

COVID caused major problems at the DVLA, who normally have 8000 staff concentrated in an office block in Swansea. Space limitations caused severe difficulties when the 2m rule and other COVID restrictions were applied. Got worse when staff felt management weren't doing enough and there were four or five strikes last year, not helped by government turning down a deal after it had been agreed. Last figures showed 500 staff in the building and 2000 working from home, which is a severe problem.

Running at a staff shortage of nearly 70% whilst prioritising HGV Drivers and Health Workers has resulted in a queue of about 1,000,000 license changes.

It's claimed DVLA's online services weren't badly disrupted, so anyone doing a vanilla online change is OK. Unfortunately anything requiring human intervention is subject to long delays because a huge queue has built up and not many people have been able to work on it.

DVLA's advice here - especially 'Can I drive while my application is with DVLA'. The only difficult condition is 'Your doctor must have told you that you are fit to drive.' Eeek! - my surgery also has long queues due to COVID...

These are not normal times!

Dave

IF you want to RENEW your old license at 70 or older you will need a medical and eye test ! You will LOOSE numerous categories if you do it on line. It will be a NEW TYPE of license and may affect driving anything more than cars and light vans, larger motorhomes Etc you will loose. Be warned ! Noel.

sorry noel but no med required or eye test Ive done mine today

Sorry Bernard but if applying for a licence at 70 years old to continue to drive vehicles requiring a Class 1 (not HGV) licence you do need to provide a medical report from either your Doctor or one of the approved organisations.
Otherwise as Noel says you lose those classes from your licence.

Perhaps for a single type car licence a medical is not required, you just state any sight issues and if you wear glasses to improve vision.

Emgee

Bernard You will find you have lost several categories, trust me I did all of it 2 years ago ! I still have 7.5T You won't now ! Noel

My wife and I will be 76 in May and last week we got the reminder to renew.

Included in the envelope was a return envelope to the DVLA at Swansea, right postcode, should be wish to to renew by post, for which a form was also included, but also included was a page advising to renew on-line, which we did, and were told our new licence would arrive within a week. We shall see! The return envelope was used to return the old driving licence, saving the pair of us two envelopes and a stamp - every little helps they say.

Renewing online was easy and straightforward, the main things was to get some details together before starting - passport number, NI number and driving licence number and working out how long we had lived here. Having these to hand first made the process painless. We had no medical issues to slow things down either.

Chris

I don't think it's unreasonable for people who are getting on, and so more likely to have issues, to have a medical and an eye test before being allowed to drive 7.5 te vehicles and minibuses. you can kill a lot of people with either of those.

That's all well a good, I don't have a passport and ended up sending it by post and getting my licence back in a week, I'm not 70 for exactly two years but I'm on a limited licence because I inject Insulin.

Martin P

And we (insulin dependent diabolics) lost our 7.5 class more than 20 years ago.

That I didn't mind as I lost access to my brothers 7.5 TK when he swapped it for a 11 ton truck, my only annoyance is that I had to de rate my Ifor Williams trailer from 2.0 ton to 1.5 ton as the towing vehicle is 2 ton.

Martin P

Reply to Asmsaranda

[In respect of cyclists, there is a set of traffic lights in the next village to us which have been modified with small repeater lights located about four feet off the ground on the supporting column of the traffic lights, similar to those seen on traffic lights in France but these repeaters are not in phase with the main lights at the top of the column.]

I would call these snowflake lights!

I have kept my old plastic licence & carry it for identification purposes. My up to date one is at home where it will not get lost. No one is going to look at the date on the licence when asking for identification & if a policeman stops me then he can read the number & quickly check validity with HQ. I doubt that he would check date, but if he did I would just look stupid (easy enough) & say I made a mistake. It avoids losing the correct one. I have not been reminded to send it back & i would just say, assumed lost in post !!.

I also keep an old barclay card on my boat. On a number of occasions I have been asked to leave my card as security, ie when hiring a bike when on holiday abroad etc. So I leave my out of date one. No one checks. When I come to pay I say " Oh, i will pay with another card" & swop them. I do not want my current card being held by others.

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 12/03/2022 21:02:56

Hi Dave,

I was well aware of the difficulties being faced by major Government organisations, especially something close to me the NHS.

This problem has not just happened overnight and clearly there has been a dubious policy change at the DVLA. The outstanding backlog will not go away without some form of intervention. For each application cleared on the backlog another will come to replace it, or maybe two, or three. This is on a working day, don't forget that people have birthdays on the weekend as well when the DVLA are not working.

The current DVLA website does not reflect this policy change, as it quite clearly states 70 year olds will automatically be notified 90 days before. It would have been more sense to say that due to staff shortages and the current backlog we would advise those drivers approaching 70 to obtain form D1 from the Post Office.

However not all Post Offices can supply this unless they do taxation licences as well. Plus form D1 is not the same as the D46P which is supplied in the automatic notification, but it says it can be used.

Then there is the problem of those who are not on-line, a recent letter in Post Bag will prove this point. How do they get notified? Or do they wait until they get a fine from the local Police?

The problem with all Government departments is they assume everyone drives, they all have internet access, a mobile phone with apps and a camera. Plus they are all computer savvy. There are several of my neighbours who do not use the internet.

I for one do not have a mobile phone which does apps. I cannot do texts because the buttons are too close together and my skin will not operate a touch screen model.

At the outset of this pandemic, MOT testing was wavered. Surely a licence renewal holiday would be a step towards resolving this current problem? It is either that or they need to recruit more staff, pdq.

What really sticks in my gut is the arrogance of the CEO who feels she does not have to answer an enquiry. Her ignorance, or bad manners and poor business etiquette. Has involved more work for her staff by me making a complaint. When a reply with a simple statement as outlined above, about obtaining the form D1 would have resolved the matter there and then.

Regards

Gray,