Staged roll-out anyone?
"Yesterday was the official launch of the DVLA site, as paper licences became obsolete as of midnight. After a major collapse"
A new site mixed with a global deadline?
Really?
Wow.
Paper driving licence death day: DVLA website is still TITSUP
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) site crashed yesterday under the strain of users flocking to receive an online code to replace their paper driving licence counterparts. One user, Dave Compton, told us he was still experiencing problems this morning. He said: "I retrieved the sharing code required for my hire car …
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 08:56 GMT Mad Mike
Gross stupidity and idiocy
You really couldn't make it. Been reading and listening (radio etc.) about how this new 'service' will work and once again, it appears to be for the benefit of the government pseudo-department (DVLA) rather than their customers. The process itself appears to have been designed by a half-wit. The idea that the code (for the rental company) only lasts for 72hours and then you have to logon and apply for another is so patently stupid, it defies belief. Even an idiot wouldn't have implemented this.
On top of the stupid process, we now know that DVLA can't even keep the website up!! They cite heavy load......well, there's a surprise. First day heavy load.....who would have thought. Is it really necessary for all managers at these places to be half-wits? All of this was entirely predictable and could easily have been catered for.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:19 GMT Paul Kinsler
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
Do you want a non-expiring code that can be kept by (or leaked from) the car hire company or its employees, and be (mis)used to check up on your driver record at some undetermined later date?
I take your point - but being able to pre-generate codes with fixed & limited future validity dates would be better. You could create a stack for sequential hires, if needed, but they wouldn't persist longer than necessary.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
"I take your point - but being able to pre-generate codes with fixed & limited future validity dates would be better. You could create a stack for sequential hires, if needed, but they wouldn't persist longer than necessary."
Because all over the globe you can get a good Internet connection for little to no cost.
The DVLA is, once again, being cretinous.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 11:05 GMT Mad Mike
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
"Do you want a non-expiring code that can be kept by (or leaked from) the car hire company or its employees, and be (mis)used to check up on your driver record at some undetermined later date?"
Do, what I want is some sanity. What information does the hire car company want? Basically, endorsements. So, why do we even need codes? Many endorsements are a matter of public record anyway, as looking in any local paper will tell you.......court reports etc. Speeding fines etc. might be fixed penalty.
The only information the hire car company needs to obtain is your endorsements (not DOB or anything like that), so why not simply let them look this information up from driver numbers? OK, anybody else who obtains my driver number might be able to look up my couple of speeding offences or whatever, but so what? If they're really that interested, I'm sure the DVLA call centre would happily discuss my entire driving record with a little social engineering...........
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 11:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Endorsements - They should be able to query it on-hire w/o customer involvement
Didn't they do this already? I don't hire very often, but (IME) if you didn't take in the paper part of your license they phoned up, found out, and charged you £15 or whatever for the `service'. At least this web version should cut out the phone call and (one would hope) the charge.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 14:24 GMT JamesPond
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
I had a quick look at mine last night, 0 points 3 expired, but did include the court (Manchester). Some might argue that they would not want anyone, perhaps their spouse, to know they were in a certain place where they got caught speeding!
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 22:08 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
"The only information the hire car company needs to obtain is your endorsements"
Why do they even need that? All they really need is proof that you have a valid driving licence.
Endorsements should only really come into it if you are taking their insurance cover and be separate issue from the hire itself.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 11:41 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Are they supposed to get a new code every few days?
Do you want a non-expiring code that can be kept by (or leaked from) the car hire company...
No, I'd go for the low-tech approach. What about a date-stamped bit of paper kept with the licence which shows the details, and if necessary the online system just keeps a note of the date for the most recent revision? Sounds familiar for some reason, though.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 11:27 GMT Anonymous Blowhard
Re: Gross stupidity and idiocy
"All of this was entirely predictable and could easily have been catered for."
Hindsight is always 20:20
I just tried myself, and it seems to work fine; I suspect the heavy load on the first day was partly due to people logging on "just to give it a try", so a freak-load event rather than a peak-load.
The limited life code is entirely sensible, and I suspect that most hire-car companies will address this by not bothering to check the on-line license data; they'll most likely address the risk of disqualified drivers hiring cars through additional insurance (they make more money on insurance anyway).
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Wednesday 10th June 2015 06:58 GMT Mad Mike
Re: Gross stupidity and idiocy
@Anonymous Blowhard.
Hindsight is always 20:20. True. But, you hardly needed hindsight to see this one coming. Yes, the heavy load earlier on was probably just people trying it etc., but that was entirely predictable and therefore more resources should have been made available for this entirely predictable spike. It's called basic project management and common sense. Something that is entirely missing from anything connected to the government and many other IT shops.
The limited life code is entirely stupid. People need to be able to hire cars whenever and wherever they like. Assuming universal internet access is silly, as this simply isn't true. People do need to hire cars in the back of beyond as well as at their villa in Tuscany (probably the only place senior people at the DVLA ever hire cars). The information needed by the hire car company isn't onerous and isn't really that private either. As I said before, a lot of it is available in court records and newspapers and is therefore already public knowledge. So, the whole 'security' basis for this is somewhat misleading anyway.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:05 GMT Darren Forster
Another mess up with the DVLA paperless scheme....
Ok so here is another mess up with the DVLA's planned paperless scheme. It's an absolute joke all these paperless decisions.
I hope the DVLA know of the various problems they are causing, this isn't the first time they have messed up like this, when the tax disc was abolished the site was down for a few days so people couldn't buy their road tax, and now this.
Also I hope the DVLA also realise how easy it is for someone to evade paying road tax now with no tax disc, and it also means the person can easily speed, and steal from petrol stations because the removal of the road tax disc also means the removal of any visible proof to check that the car has the right registration plate on it, other than checking the VIN number.
With no road tax disc there is nothing to stop a family with two identical cars (same make, model, engine, year and colour) from taxing one, taking the log book down for that one and having a new set of plates made up for it and putting it on the other vehicle. When it goes past any ANPR camera the camera would show that the vehicle is taxed, insured, MOT'd, etc, any speeding points would be given to the other vehicle, petrol theft would also be given to the other vehicle, and without stopping the car and checking the VIN the police would have absolutely no proof that the car they see is a different car to the other one.
The other thing is there is also nothing to stop someone walking down a street and finding an identical car to theirs that is taxed and insured and going online and getting a fake set of plates made, many places online that make vehicle plates do not ask to see any log book or anything, and again they could then use that vehicle in any way such as speeding, stealing petrol, etc and the police would need to check the VIN of the vehicle to actually find out if it was driving with fake plates, otherwise the owner of the other vehicle would get all the charges.
However with the old tax disc there was at least some proof that the vehicle had been taxed and the police could check that the tax disc reg plate matches the reg plate on the front of the vehicle, ok I suppose there was ways to fraud that too, but it was a lot more harder.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:16 GMT Test Man
Re: Another mess up with the DVLA paperless scheme....
"However with the old tax disc there was at least some proof that the vehicle had been taxed and the police could check that the tax disc reg plate matches the reg plate on the front of the vehicle, ok I suppose there was ways to fraud that too, but it was a lot more harder."
The police almost never bothered with looking at the tax disc, and hadn't for over a decade.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 13:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Another mess up with the DVLA paperless scheme....
"The police almost never bothered with looking at the tax disc, and hadn't for over a decade."
On both my last two manually produced tax discs the writing had faded to illegibility long before they expired.
The sensible Continental system of a new annual number plate seems to have been beyond us, but then we are the only country silly enough to obsess over personalised number plates. (One sociologist described them as "middle class tattoos", obviously before the middle class started dumbing down and getting actual ones)
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Wednesday 10th June 2015 06:17 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Another mess up with the DVLA paperless scheme....
The sensible Continental system of a new annual number plate seems to have been beyond us,
Which continent would that be? Are you suggesting that other countries issue a new number plate each year? I doubt that many do that.
but then we are the only country silly enough to obsess over personalised number plates.
The US has had them for years, but they're banned in most (all?) EU states. The UK does allow people to sell registrations, so that JUL 1 E and SUS 1 E go for silly money, but those aren't personalized per-se. There are some amusing ones, the Hastings Hotels group in N. Ireland is (was?) run by Bill and Joy Hastings, and they could be seen rolling around Belfast in cars with BIL 1066 and JOI 1066 plates.
UK law still prohibits the use of a license plate that could make a car seem younger than it is (i.e. a 1980 plate on a 1960 car), which can limit the fun & games a bit.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:24 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: "nothing to stop a family with two identical cars..."
Excuse me if I'm slightly confused, but if the same family has the two identical cars, then what's the use of going hog-wild with one of them and getting the other one indicted for it ? It's still them that ends up with the bill (or the Police at their door).
Your second example is better - except that speeding carries a lesser fine than sporting a license number you have no right to. When you get caught for that you're not getting fined, you're going to jail. Not worth it unless you're already a hardened criminal.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "nothing to stop a family with two identical cars..."
..and as for stealing petrol by driving away from a petrol station without paying.... some police forces say they're no longer going to take action about that as they haven't got the budget and it can be resolved via the civil courts!
Strange that they don't take the same stance for copyright problems.... I wonder why....
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 10:33 GMT Graham Marsden
There is no such thing as "Road Tax"!
The Road Fund Licence (ie a tax to pay for the building and upkeep of Britain's Roads) was abolished in 1936!
You pay Vehicle Excise Duty which is a tax on the ownership of a car or other such vehicle which you pay whether it's used or not unless declared SORN.
Yet still people claim that they "pay to use the roads" with the implicit or explicit assumption that this gives them more rights than those who don't...
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 14:13 GMT nijam
Re: There is no such thing as "Road Tax"!
> The Road Fund Licence ... was abolished in 1936!
Well, no it wasn't, only the name (more specifically, the goverment's name for it) changed; everything else stayed exactly the same - the price, the little disc you got to stick the windscreen, the way you bought it, ...
So it wasn't actually changed in any meaningful way. Obviously. And that's why people keep calling it by the original name.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 17:09 GMT Graham Marsden
Re: There is no such thing as "Road Tax"!
>> The Road Fund Licence ... was abolished in 1936!
> Well, no it wasn't,
The point is that, up until 1936 it was "hypothecated" (ie ring-fenced) so it could *only* be used for road building and maintenance.
After then, it simply went into the government's coffers along with all the other tax revenue and they could spend that money on anything they wanted.
So, yes, it was changed in a meaningful way because for the last 80 years nobody has "paid to use the roads", yet there's still a dangerous sense of entitlement from many drivers who believe that it gives them the right to behave like arseholes towards anyone who doesn't pay vehicle tax.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not fit for purpose
I was getting 405 Not Allowed and 500 Internal Server Errors and sometimes the data entry page would just reappear again. Eventually, after half an hour of trying, it finally told me it could not verify my details and gave me a phone number to call. When I did I was told that "not all data has been transferred to the system yet".
I do not know if that is true or simply a bullshit excuse.
The only positive is that I can now recall my driver licence and NI numbers from memory having typed those in so many times.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Not fit for purpose
I must admit I was worried when it was recently revealed that they have tied the driver number to your NI number (and more worried that you needed to know your NI number to this to get this information).
I'm trying to remember whether that was always the case (I was involved in the DRP program for photo-card licenses 10 years ago), and I don't think it was there then, although there was a data joining effort to allow passport photos to be used for driving licenses.
It seems that now that the ID card system is has gone the way of the dodo, that HMG have decided to use your NI number as a super-key to tie all their disparate databases together, adding it to databases that had previously never needed it. This was my primary objection to the ID card system in the first place, so I am not happy!
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 10:20 GMT Christoph
Re: Not fit for purpose
"HMG have decided to use your NI number as a super-key"
Here we go again. The US has made a complete mess of things, so let's copy them but without the good bits.
The American Social Security Number is massively misused as an authenticator, which it was not designed for and is completely unsuitable for. So now HMG are using the NI number as an authenticator.
Lots and lots of people have access to your NI number!
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 15:10 GMT JamesPond
Re: Not fit for purpose
Lots and lots of people have access to your NI number!
Indeed, whilst filling between contracts last year, I joined an employment agency that needed my driving license number (for a driving job) and my NI number and DOB to pay me. Their computer system now has all the relevant details to run the check without me every knowing! I'm sure as a small agency they are not high on IT security and pay lip service to confidentiality
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 13:06 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Not fit for purpose
It seems that now that the ID card system is has gone the way of the dodo, that HMG have decided to use your NI number as a super-key to tie all their disparate databases together, adding it to databases that had previously never needed it.
Err... That is not copying USA. USA does not index _EVERYTHING_ by your NI.
That is copying Bulgaria which indexes everything (even your parking tickets) by your NI and it is even present in your passport and ID and has been doing it since the early 70-es. You cannot buy or sell a house, you cannot even buy or sell a car there without a check vs the indexed database showing that you are all in the clear with regards to your obligations to the state (I was trying to buy a summer house in 2005 and the sale fell through because the cretin selling it had 500+ worth of unpaid parking and speeding tickets).
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:33 GMT Matt 21
Re: I don't know why you're all complaining...
and his mates will be along shortly with some statistics to prove it. Plus those complaining really need to understand that they have to keep up with the times and that going electronic will save the country a lot of money.
In the next stage of the role out you'll be able to request the code via Facebook.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:13 GMT Headley_Grange
What do other countries do?
Frustratingly missing from all the reports on this is how other countries manage this. I don't know if other countries have the same penalties/endorsement system as we do for drivers, but for those which do, and only have a photo licence then how do their citizens hire cars? Anyone know?
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 09:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What do other countries do?
> for those which do, and only have a photo licence then how do their citizens hire cars? Anyone know?
You use your driving licence (+ credit card, obviously). If you get caught driving when you shouldn't, say you ran out of points, then you're deep in the shit. In many cases your licence will be confiscated by the police / judge anyway so you wouldn't have one. In those cases, and if you insist on driving a hire car, I presume you would get a mate to do the hiring for you, same as you would in Britain. Needless to say, it sounds like a remarkably stupid idea, but there'll always be one.
I really do not understand why some governments try so hard to make things as complicated as imaginable.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 13:28 GMT MarkA
Re: What do other countries do?
You get to the airport, hand over your photo driving license as ID along with your CC and you're off to the races. I wish I could say I was stunned that the DVLA have done something so dumb as a three day expiring code. You can just imagine the 20 civil servants in the room coming up with that shite. And as for the tax disk thing? Everyone else puts a sticker either on the registration plates or stuck to the inside of the windscreen.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 14:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What do other countries do?
As a Brit living in the US I can answer that for you. They don't care! I rent cars every other week or so here in the US with my NY drivers license. All they care about is whether you have a license or not - as the most serious driving offenses will lead to you losing your license - which means the police or courts will physically take it from you.
Although most states do have a record of past offenses, they don't really have a points system where three speeding tickets (or whatever) lead to you losing your license. However, the licensing authority does track that and when the police scan your license after stopping you they will see your terrible record and charge you with a "repeated" offense or just take your license from you.
I, too, was stunned at the short sighted approach that DVLA have taken here because its completely unworkable in most places in the world. Remember airlines and car rental agencies are still using dot matrix printers, so the likelihood (and risk) of all terminals being connected to the internet to check driving records is vanishingly small. I'm also going to echo the concern with using NI # as a unique identifier - which has been shown to be a complete disaster in the USA, so of course has been copied by the fuckwits responsible for this in the UK.
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Tuesday 9th June 2015 17:45 GMT Fonant
Re: What do other countries do?
as the most serious driving offenses will lead to you losing your license
The lack of this is the root cause of the bad driving problems we have in the UK. Once we have a driving licence, usually in our late teens, we get to keep it until we're 70 years old. You can be caught driving dangerously, or speeding, and still keep your licence. If you're unlucky enough to kill someone with your dangerous driving you might be asked to stop driving for a few months, but that's as bad as it gets.
Keep the points system, ditch the fines, take people's licences to drive away as soon as they get 12 points (no "ifs" no "buts"), and seriously penalise anyone caught driving without a licence. As seriously as penalising someone using a gun without a gun licence. Driving behaviour would improve overnight.
For bonus improvements, require all drivers to retake their driving test every five years. That way everyone gets the latest test, and drivers have a strong incentive to try to keep their driving habits up to test-passing standard.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
