Safe Speed Forums

Please excuse the length of this post but I hope that, in describing my sad experience in detail, I may be able to save someone else from my misery. Failing that, it may serve as a warning to anyone who still believes that the DVLA are anything other than the shock troops in the Government's war on motorists.

It all began in May 2003. I was driving toward London on the empty M11 motorway at about 12:30 am on a clear night, when I was flashed by the GATSO that "guards" the junction with the M25. It was a fair cop: they'd dropped the speed limit to 50 mph and I was doing 65 (I'll leave aside the fact that there is no reason for this speed limit to be in operation outside of busy hours; having one's pocket picked by cash-obsessed local councils is just an occupational hazard of motoring in Britain).

Given the trivial nature of my "offence," I expected, at most, a fixed penalty notice to arrive in the post. I was therefore rather surprised when I got a letter advising me of the court's intention to prosecute me for my crime. Clearly, Britain is such a peaceful and law-abiding country that the courts have abundant time and resources to concern themselves with cases like mine.

My court date was set for 23 December last year, but in early December, I moved to a new house. In order to forestall the accusation that my driving licence contained the wrong address (and the associated £400 fine), I duly applied to the DVLA for a new licence (which required me to send them my old one).

With the speed and efficiency for which they are rightly renowned, the DVLA sat on my licence application for nearly a month. I was therefore obliged to inform the court that I was unable to produce my licence at my "trial." The court made me jump through all sorts of hoops before they finally got in touch with the DVLA and established that yes, indeed, my licence was being processed by them. I wrote to the DVLA, informing them of my upcoming prosecution and advising them that the result may be the addition of some points to my licence. So everyone was in the picture. I thought.

My trial day finally arrived (after the months of date changes, threatening letters and "offenders" advice leaflets telling me what clothes I should bring if I thought I might be sent to jail) and I was given....wait for it....a £60 fine. No mention was made in court of a "fixed penalty" or any points being applied to my licence, so I thought that perhaps this was a tacit admission that the circumstances of my crime made it clear that I had not been driving in an inappropriate manner.

When my new licence arrived from the DVLA in early January and it too was free of points, I considered myself to have had a lucky escape and thought no more about it. My job requires me to spend extended periods out of the country, so I left the UK in mid-January 2004 (relieved that my little brush with the law was finally cleared up) and did not return until July.

Here's where the fun begins.

Upon my return, I found a typically arrogant and threatening letter from the DVLA, advising me that, since I had not sent my licence to them for endorsement, they had revoked it. Not suspended, mind, revoked. I was further advised that, if I did not send my licence to them immediately, they would get the police to come and take it from me (presumably, by force). If I wished to "appeal" their decision, I could go to court.

I immediately wrote to the DVLA (I tried phoning first, but they have a very sophisticated system for telling you precisely nothing in a menacing tone of voice), explaining that the reason why I had not sent them my licence at the time of my court hearing was because they already had it. The DVLA's response was ungrammatical, wordy and poorly spelled, but it boiled down to "you're licence was being processed by a different department and we don't talk to them, so you're stuffed matey."

So it was back to court. After months of waiting, I finally had my hearing last Friday. I appealed against the DVLA's ruling but, to my shock, the court upheld it. Even though the mistake was entirely the DVLA's, I had apparantly failed in my duty to provide them with an address at which they could contact me. That failure on my part, apparently, justfied the DVLA in doing whatever they wanted to me.

Given that I spend much of my time working at a variety of client sites around the world, I would have to renew my licence every six weeks to comply with this requirement. I would also be unable to rent cars while abroad, because I'd be constantly waiting for my new licence to arrive from the DVLA. Or maybe I should have asked the DVLA for an "account manager" who would be solely responsible for tracking my whereabouts, on the off-chance they should need to contact me.

I am having difficulty understanding what this ruling means for UK drivers (so does my solicitor, for that matter). Can the law really reqire that we apply for a new driving licence whenever we go on holiday, visit friends for an extended period or work away from home for a few months, just in case the DVLA needs to get in touch? If so, the DVLA had better invest in far more efficient systems than it currently uses to handle the processing of hundreds of millions of new licence applications every year.

So there we are. I can no longer legally drive a motor vehicle. If I want to drive again, I will have to retake my driving test. The fact that I have never had an accident in over 25 years of driving and have never previously been convicted of any motoring offence (including parking tickets), carries no weight. I am clearly a danger to other road users and must be stopped.

I compare my experience with that of a colleague who was stopped for dangerous driving early last year, found to be drunk, and who had his licence suspended for a year. He has now had his licence returned and is happily pootling around the highways of Britain. He didn't need to retake his test. I, on the other hand, may never be allowed to drive again.

It seems that, in common with most fascist organisations, the DVLA saves their greatest rage and most draconian punishments for those who commit offenses against bureaucracy. After all, killing someone by driving dangerously is far less serious than making some DVLA functionary inerrupt his/her afternoon nap to write a threatening and abusive letter, isn't it? Just like Germany under Nazi rule, failure to produce "your papers" on demand is the real crime.

All together now, Seig Heil!

It's an outrage.

How do you feel about taking it to the press?

If you like the idea, email me at psmith@safespeed.org.uk and we'll start to work out the details.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

What an absolute and utter blood-boiling outrage. I'll try to add some suggestions here when I calm down. Meanwhile, going to press does seem good - although a better one might be Watchdog.

I wonder how many others are out there in similar dispositions?

Hmm, it's easy to knock private companies, but knocking an arm of government might be more difficult, particularly when the complainant has committed an "offence".

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

True, Peter. what about getting one's local MP onside?

Thanks for your suggestions. The press is certainly an option. I'm going to try to exhaust the legal channels first, however. My solicitor is positively licking his lips at the prospect of taking this "all the way" (by which he presumably means "all the way to the bottom of your bank account.")

If past abuses by UK Government organisations is any guide, I will exhaust every court up to and including the House of Lords, take the case to the European Court, get a ruling in my favour, and then see that ruling ignored by the UK.

I'll keep you posted.

Out of interest, are you still driving, and, if so, what is your insurance situation?

I'd be getting taxis everywhere now and raising the stakes...

Bizarrely, I was told that I am permitted drive for a year from the date of revocation. So I am now legally driving without a licence until next March, at which point I will have to stop.

Its the most Through the Looking Glass situation I've ever encountered. Apparently, I'm such a menace that I've had my licence revoked, yet I can legally drive for a year before taking the test to prove that I can drive. I feel like a character in a Kafka novel.

As you can imagine, my insurance has gone through the roof (in spite of 25 years of no-claims driving).

Hang on a mo!
If the court did not apply penalty points to your license, why would the DVLA require it's return for endorsement? AFAICT, penalty points may not be mandatory (the only references that I found said that a court can give penalty points, not must give them). Surely, if the courts imposed penalty points, you would have been so informed at your sentencing.

WRT to being out of the country, I can only assume that all those pensioners who winter in warmer climes are also heinous criminals AIUI, you are required to provide your permanent UK address to DVLA and (except for BFPO addresses) an address to somewhere other than UK is not allowed, and neither is a PO box (that's certainly the case for vehicle registration, so I assume the same applies for driving licenses). If that is so, then you would not have been able to notify DVLA of your temporary address. How on earth can you be guilty of not doing something that the law forbids you to do

The whole thing stinks, surely the press can have a field day with this, even if it's only the "pensioners who go south for the winter are criminals" angle.

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Will

That's exactly the thought process I went through. It sounds like the only option that permits you to remain within the law is to surrender your licence when you leave the country, however briefly, and reapply for it when you return. Otherwise, you have to run the risk that the DVLA will try to contact you and, failing that, revoke your licence.

The law actually states (I'm told) that you have to give an address where you can be "physically" contacted. Am I the only one who thinks that a legal requirement that stipulates the possibility of physical intimidation is a bit sinister?

As for the 3 points, the court documents I received after my speeding trial only stipulated a £60 fine and made no mention of points. The DVLA "interpreted" the ruling to mean a fixed penalty and applied the points to my record.

In the end, however, my licence was revoked not because of the points (which would be applied to my file in any case), but because I did not jump like a good little rabbit and send my licence to the DVLA when they snapped their fingers. They can apparantly require you to send them your licence at any time, for any reason, and if you fail to do so or the letter goes missing, you've had it.

They also make a big point of telling you that any appeal or dispute must be made through the courts. In this way, they have neatly removed themselves from public accountability and the principles of customer service and retreated behind the wall of the judicial system. Its the public sector equivalent of taking a faulty product back to the shop and being told "sue us."

Wasn't that a little presumptuous on their part? AFAICT, DVLA have absolutely no powers to determine your punishment. That rightly belongs with the courts, although you may have the option to agree your punishment out of court via the fixed-penalty system. If what you say is true, the court decided to punish you with a £60 fine only. By imposing an additional penalty, the DVLA employee who decided to add points to your license was probably acting outside his remit and may be guilty of the offense of misfeasance in public office.

Are you a member of the RAC, AA, etc? If so, can their legal department help? Being as misfeasance renders the offender liable to a personal compensation claim, perhaps a no-win, no-fee outfit can help you get some revenge.

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Will

Thanks, I'll looks into those options.

Interestingly, the DVLA didn't mention the 3 points in their representation to the court. Their case hinged on the fact that I didn't "surrender" my licence on demand, as the law requires. They are presumably entitled to demand it just so they can have a laugh at my photo if they want.

I must say I'm not optimistic about getting the courts to see my position. Trying to get one branch of government to rule against another is tantamount to asking Colonel Sanders to babysit your chickens.

I understood that when the DVLA came into being, it was simply a private fact-storing agency employed by the government? And that they only do what the justice system allows them to do? i.e. they are not the law!

Ryujin
I wonder what is your position with the law as you are apparently driving legally without a licence, does this mean that if you are prosecuted for another offence, for example 35 in a 30 limit say, can they add 3 points to a non existent licence? (I am not suggesting that you do this just wondering what will happen). Or is this the same legal problem of a driver who does not have a licence? Legal opinions anybody?

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tanj There Ain't No Justice

This is good material, and it is a fight worth fighting (assuming we have the whole picture and Ryujin is not holding anything back). I sent this message to the DVLA. I'll keep you posted.

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I stole this .sig

I'm pretty sure you can still get points even if you don't have a licence. You can definitely be disqualified from driving, since driving while disqualified is a lot more serious than driving without a licence. A disqualification also applies to things like golf buggies for which no licence is needed, I remeber a golfer was advised in court that could not drive one while disqualified if he was in a public place.

I would be tempted to drop a copy of this unbelievable story to Richard Littlejohn, c/o The Sun.
He seems to like stories like this.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I'll be interested to see what reply you get Basing. I'm currently in a state of utter bafflement about what my legal position is. My first step has been to engage a different solicitor who is currently reviewing all the materials of my case. Hopefully, he'll have more of a clue about what the ruling means than my previous one did.

It would be fascinating to blast along the motorway at 130mph, get stopped, and tell the police, "I don't have a licence anyway. So what are you going to put the points on, my arse?" The only thing stopping me is the years I would no doubt spend in prison for my little stunt (no doubt after "accidentally" falling down a few flights of stairs on the way).

I want to thank everyone for the interest they've taken in my plight and the suggestions made. I at least feel like I'm taking more control of my fate, rather than letting a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats play God with my civil rights.

Cannot remember where I read this .... presumably in a tabloid paper

I seem to remember reading something about a lady who did not drive herself, but was the RK of the vehicle. Someone legally entitled to drrive her car was copped by camera..... and her records showed it to be one of two people on her payroll. She had no idea who was actually driving at the time in question, and was thus done for "failing to identify driver"

Apparently, she was fined £600 and incurred 3 penalty points on driving licence which does not exist.

However, it seems that if she were to apply for a provisional licence, and qualifies as a driver, the penalty points incurred before she even commenced driving would be endorsed on her shiny new licence.... which means one blip and she is out - and facing re-test....

The law is an ass.

That's not quite what happens. The points are applied to a non-existent licence, yes, but they time out like normal points. They also don't count towards the 6-points and a retest scheme.

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Carl Prescott