This is for the picture type licence im told.....................
Unwitting motorists face £1,000 fines as thousands of photocard driving
licences expire
By Ray Massey
Last updated at 6:46 PM on 11th September 2008
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Thousands of motorists are at risk of being fined up to £1,000 because
they are unwittingly driving without a valid licence.
They risk prosecution after failing to spot the extremely small print on
their photocard licence which says it automatically expires after 10 years
and has to be renewed - even though drivers are licensed to drive until
the age of 70.
The fiasco has come to light a decade after the first batch of photo
licences was issued in July 1998, just as they start to expire.
Motoring organisations blamed the Government for the fiasco and said
'most' drivers believed their licences were for life.
Enlarge (Embedded image moved to file: pic23281.jpg)A mock-up driving
licence
A mock-up driving licence from 1998 when the photocards were launched
shows the imminent expiry date as item '4b'
They said officials had failed to publicise sufficiently the fact that
new-style licences - unlike the old paper ones - expire after a set period
and have to be renewed.
To rub salt into wounds, drivers will have to pay £17.50 to renew their
card - a charge which critics have condemned as a 'stealth tax' and
which
will earn the Treasury an estimated £437million over 25 years.
Official DVLA figures reveal that while 16,136 expired this summer, so far
only 11,566 drivers have renewed, leaving 4,570 outstanding.
With another 300,000 photocard licences due to expire over the coming
year, experts fear the number of invalid licences will soar, putting
thousands more drivers in b reach of the law and at risk of a fine.
At the heart of the confusion is the small print on the tiny
credit-card-size photo licence, which is used in conjunction with the
paper version.