Posted: Tuesday, 16 December 2014
Imagine earning your driving licence in the early 1970s, only to be told by the DVLA more than forty years later that you do not actually have one. Then imagine being prosecuted for driving without a licence because the police and Government cannot figure out what is going on. As bizarre as it might sound, this is exactly what happened to a Yorkshire man recently.
News reports say that 62-year-old Geoff Bullingham was pulled over two years ago after exceeding the local speed limit by 6 mph. When he needed to produce his driving licence in order to attend a speed awareness course, officials insisted he did not have a licence despite the fact that Bullingham held the document in his hands. Upon further investigation, the DVLA insisted Mr Bullingham take a driving test in order to convert what they thought was a provisional entitlement into a full licence. All along, he was facing a conviction of driving without a licence.
Fortunately, Bullingham's MP stepped in and helped settle the issue. It was determined that he indeed had a valid licence and that, somewhere in the transition from paper to computer years ago, the details of Mr Bullingham's licencing from the 1970s was lost.
Mr Bullingham's case is one that allows us to say all is well that ends well. Nevertheless, there are times when that cannot be said. For example, what about the driver who does not have a valid licence yet convinces a prospective employer that he does. This is the very kind of scenario we help our clients protect against by offering routine licence checks. Our licence check service makes it possible for our customers to know, right away, whether a potential employee's licence is valid or not. Nonetheless, we don't stop there.
There are times when an individual may be hired with a valid and clean licence. However, later, an accident or violation may lead to licence points the driver fails to disclose to his employer. This type of scenario could become a bigger problem should the driver have an accident while operating a company vehicle.
The story from Yorkshire clearly shows that no system is perfect. Even the Government gets it wrong from time to time. Nevertheless, such stories are the exception to the rule. For the most part, licence checks return accurate information that business owners and fleet managers need to make sure the drivers have clean, valid driving licences.
For more than 20 years, Fleet Licence Check has been providing claims handling service and licence checking to motoring companies across the UK. We work with companies of every size, providing one-off solutions or a complete package of multiple services provided on an ongoing basis. We urge you to consider working with us regardless of the size of your company or the scope of your business. Remember that licence checking will become even more important when paper licences are eliminated from the beginning of 2015.
Source: Yorkshire Post