Medical Review Licence - part 2

If the term 'pop-pickers' prompts memories, then this affects you.  A normal/full Driving Licence expires on your 70th birthday (check it).  Thereafter you get three-yearly renewals.  DVLA are helpful and send you a reminder, and they urge you to do it on-line for simplicity.  This is fine if you just have car (category B) driving entitlement.  I did it for Mary: first you get a Government Gateway portal login to confirm your ID, then click on DVLA's advised link.  But, if you've got other category entitlements, including minibuses (D), then it's a different matter.

In fact, DVLA have no simple mechanism.  What you do is renew the 'vocational' category (like D), and they will throw in the other 'lesser' ones (like B).   The big deal is that you have to undergo a full medical eight-page examination.  The system is so strangulated that you can only get the necessary D2 (Application) and D4 (Medical) forms from a main Post Office.  Applying through DVLA's on-line order site will yield you nothing.

Still with me?  Then here's a cautionary tale involving my friend Barrie.  When he was 70, he tried to get it right with on-line renewal.  For 18 months he tootled around in minibuses.  One fateful day someone asked him if he'd checked his category entitlements.  Gulp.  So he set about trying to get belated renewal.  Medical letters multiplied.  Barrie had serious health issues: eventually he passed away in Northern General's Critical Care Unit.  The DVLA medical team continued to write.  I phoned to draw a line under the matter.  Because I had all Barrie's details, I passed all the ID checks, then confirmed his death.  "You're committing a serious fraudulent offence," the lady exploded.  "Okay - just tell me how I can spare you the effort," I countered.

Before Easter, I let my local Medical Centre know that I would be asking them for an appointment to satisfy the examination.  Last time it had been a double session, and set me back £75.  This time it needed three sessions (and cost £120).  Have you tried to get three back-to-back doctor's appointment slots lately?  My GP was relaxed and helpful (well, I hadn't come with an ailment).  He reprinted my consultants' letters.  They amounted to my cardiac (and haematology) condition being stable.  "After all," my GP encouraged, "you probably had all this going on at your last examination and renewal.  It's just that we've now had them diagnosed.  That's an improvement, really."  I didn't resent the fee: if DVLA should escalate my caseload, as they had for Barrie, he would more than earn it.  For good measure, Specsavers supplied the opticians examination section on the basis of my last eye-test.

I sent off the D2 and D4 forms to DVLA, and waited.  They won't deal with an enquiry until three weeks have passed.  They passed, and I got a reference number - and confirmation that my Application was at the medical review stage.  DVLA even sent me a text message explaining what to do about continuing to drive if my birthday passed.  I started to worry.  But hang on, my friend Ed got his renewal without a blink, and he's had major cardiac surgery.  I was due for a driver training session, and would need my Licence.  I used the DVLA 'view-my-driving-licence' on-line link [ https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence ].  Expired, it confirmed.  This week, a month after my birthday, DVLA sent an explanatory letter, and my new Licence followed two days later.  So, on 8 June next year, I may become a compulsory pedestrian.  Sigh.  It wasn't meant to be like this.