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Update On Your Driving Licence & Hiring A Car Abroad

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In place of the counterpart, all endorsements and convictions are now held only online by the DVLA – and the online record is the only point of access for British drivers.


Problems When Hiring A Car Abroad

  • The rights and wrongs of abolishing the paper counterpart aside, there are a number of problems the move has created for people wanting to hire a car abroad.
  • The hire car company is still likely to demand evidence of the customer’s driving record when renting a car – even though that record is now held only online.
  • According to a report by the BBC on the 8th of June 2015, 73% of British drivers did not know how that information might be made available to the hire car company.

In fact, the online record is accessible only by the licence holder obtaining a code number from the DVLA. Originally this code only lasted for three days but was then increased to 21 days due to the difficulties that such a short time frame caused.

The new system also got off to an especially shaky start, when many drivers reported difficulties in entering some parts of the DVLA’s website and one UK car hire company reported long queues of customers waiting to access their online records.

With so many UK licence holders unaware of the effect of the changes, it is not difficult to imagine how confusing they are likely to have been for foreign car rental companies throughout this summer.


Not Just Your Driving Licence

Persuading a foreign car rental company to accept your British driving licence and record of previous convictions has not been the only problem.

There is the notorious and especially long-running complication of arranging car hire excess insurance – unless you have the foresight to arrange standalone cover through an independent UK based provider, such as us here at Bettersafe before you set off on your travels.

Unless you do so, you are still likely to find yourself under considerable pressure from many foreign hire car companies to purchase the excess insurance protection offered by them.

What many drivers consider to be an inferior form of cover nevertheless costs a substantial amount in daily charges and may add many hundreds of pounds to the cost of hiring a car.

Tales of car rental rip-offs in the sale of the company’s own promoted product are legion – and this past summer appears to have seen no let-up in the questionable practices exercised by less than scrupulous hire car companies abroad.


Brexit Challenges

Following Brexit, there has been an increasing number of changes, specifically around documents for driving in Europe.

You'll need to ensure you have the following whenever you drive :

  • Your Certificate of Insurance
  • The logbook (V5C)
  • A GB sticker if your number plate has the Euro symbol, a national flag of England, Scotland or Wales, or letters and numbers with no flag.