Car Hire affected by license changes in UK

[mokfey]

I received the following from my son in UK this morning. Some may find it of interest.

You may already be aware of the change to the UK driving licence and the fact that the paper counterpart is no longer legally valid. If you ever hire a car, however, you now need to follow new rules and obtain a temporary code - valid for 72 hours - to present to your car hire company both here in the UK and, possibly, abroad.

I returned a hire car this morning and was chatting to the bloke about the impact of the new changes. The car hire company I used hates the new scheme because, in the event of problems, they have to verify customer licences via a dedicated line they have had to install. According to the guy with whom I was speaking, the reason everything is being done this way is because of fears of "Big Brother" but the information drivers have to obtain actually give car hire companies more information about their customers than they need - their NI number for a start - as well as full driving history, penalty points and motoring convictions.

Anyway, more details on the changes to the law here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shoppin ... broad.html

[waddo]

Just for fun I tried to check my license details - penalty points etc - having not been off the Island for the past eight years I did not expect to find many!!! Correct, what I did find was that using the Government service I was "Not Allowed" to view anything. Guess that's it then, I am officially not allowed.

[Cally]

Thought I would have a look....Website cannot be displayed, says it all....

[Owl Lady]

Hi Cally, try again, got onto website no problem. In a nut shell it says hang on to the paper portion in your old licence for while and take it abroad with you.!!!

[thomasm1964]

Subsequent to my Dad's earlier post, I have logged onto the Government's driving licence enquiry website (https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence) and taken some screenshots so people can see what is involved in the process.

Assuming you can get on (and the UK papers are having a field day with yesterday's problems!), the process is pretty simple. You need to supply your driving licence number, your National Insurance number and your postcode ... erm! ... and tick a box to say you allow your NI number to be checked against Department of Work and Pensions and HMRC records. Big Brother? Perish the thought!

The 72 hour code generator can be found under the "Share Your Details" tab. Simply click the button to generate the code for presentation to the car hire company . employer / nosy neighbour / naughty policeman and so on.

Incidentally, does anyone know what line the TRNC car hire companies are taking with respect to the changes? For the time being, I'm hanging on to my paper counterpart just in case.

[Cally]

Ha ha Owl Lady, I only have a paper licence, not moved in 32 years & clean as a whistle....but I was intrigued to see what was there

[kaiserphil]

Thomas, I was never asked for anything but my license and the money while I lived there. I don't suppose it has changed by now.

[come_on_aylin]

Just thought I'd give it a go and was surprised to see it worked. I still have the old paper licence with my last uk address but it accepted the details and I could have generated a code if I wanted.

[come_on_aylin]

Just a follow up on this, we hired a car in uk a few weeks ago. When we arrived to collect it the company called the DVLA, spoke to them, passed the phone to my husband who had to confirm his licence number and address but not NINO as we expected then as the second driver I went through the same process. The phone was then passed back to the member of staff who got confirmation that there were no problems with our licences. We did try to give them our Turkish licences but they weren't interested. As they have to go through this process with every UK licence holder collecting the car takes a good bit longer than on previous occasions so allow extra time. However, I've just read on BBC that you can now generate a code 3 weeks prior to renting instead of the ludicrously short 3 days. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33475879

[muffin1]

You will need your UK licence to renew your licence to drive in the South anually

[come_on_aylin]

Sorry not really sure what you mean and what it's got to do with car hire. Could you clarify?

[Panchocat]

We always use our Turkish licences when hiring a car in the UK. Have never had it refused.