With cherished number plates being our passion, it makes sense that we’ve also got a genuine interest in cars too. With this in mind, we’re delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with Supercar Driver (SCD), the North of England’s premier members club for owners of supercars.
SCD is an exclusive club, with members all being proud owners of beautiful examples of fast and powerful cars; think Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, McLaren and other well known marques that represent prestige and performance. The club gives members the opportunity to take part in track days, view private collections, attend rallies and meet up to discuss the many aspects of supercar ownership.
A Super Opportunity
Here at Simply Registrations, we don’t just know our cherished number plates; we’re also well versed in Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) procedures and the intricacies of registration transfers & retention applications. By joining this active community and partnering with SCD, we’ll be able to offer our expertise and advice to all members and assist them in sourcing the ideal private number plate to complement their cars. Finding a number plate to reflect an owner’s name or interests isn’t always easy, but we can help them to identify the right combination to add that finishing touch to their pride and joy.
As part of our affiliation with SCD, I will be attending certain member events so that supercar owners can talk to me directly. I will happily answer any questions and offer my advice free of charge, giving attendees at these events the chance to discover the latest information and matters of interest in the world of private number plates and hear up-to-date news and developments from the DVLA.
Are you a Supercar owner?
If you’re interested in finding out more, you can visit the Supercar Driver website and if you own one of their qualifying cars, you can apply for membership of this bespoke club and have the chance to come to one of their forthcoming events. You can get a taste of what goes on at the meetings by watching SCD-TV on YouTube and can also connect on Facebook and Twitter too.
Simply Registrations is delighted to have been accepted by SCD as their preferred industry partner. We can’t wait to meet with the members of Supercar Driver and look forward to working with this exclusive organisation.
British Number Plates to be Scrapped?
A European Union proposal to introduce a standard design for all European number plates will not be supported by the UK Government. Several national newspapers including the Daily Express and the Daily Mail broke the news claiming British number plates could be axed. The legislation being worked on by a Dutch Liberal Democrat MEP suggests vehicles across EU member states should all display number plates in common colours.
Fears among British motorists, including some who paid large amounts of money for the rights to display personalised registrations, were evident following an influx of telephone calls and emails to cherished number dealers. The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) responded with the following statement:
“We are aware of today’s articles regarding the EU proposal to standardise the design of vehicle registration numbers. The Agency has been advised by Department for Transport that there are no proposals being drawn up by the EU Commission to introduce a European standardised number plate format. Neither the Commission nor any other EU countries are pursuing this idea. It is just one MEP suggesting that the Commission could consider this idea in the future. The UK Government does not support this amendment; the idea is not going to go anywhere.”
Private number plate enthusiasts called the EU proposal ‘garbage’.
Considering sales of personalised registrations raises almost one hundred million pounds of revenue for HM Treasury every year, it is not surprising officials in Westminster are against the proposal. British motorists are legally required to display number plates on their vehicles to comply with The Motor Car Act 1903; one of the main purposes of the Act is to help identify vehicles and their drivers.
Simply Registrations partners with Supercar Driver
With cherished number plates being our passion, it makes sense that we’ve also got a genuine interest in cars too. With this in mind, we’re delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with Supercar Driver (SCD), the North of England’s premier members club for owners of supercars.
SCD is an exclusive club, with members all being proud owners of beautiful examples of fast and powerful cars; think Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, McLaren and other well known marques that represent prestige and performance. The club gives members the opportunity to take part in track days, view private collections, attend rallies and meet up to discuss the many aspects of supercar ownership.
A Super Opportunity
Here at Simply Registrations, we don’t just know our cherished number plates; we’re also well versed in Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) procedures and the intricacies of registration transfers & retention applications. By joining this active community and partnering with SCD, we’ll be able to offer our expertise and advice to all members and assist them in sourcing the ideal private number plate to complement their cars. Finding a number plate to reflect an owner’s name or interests isn’t always easy, but we can help them to identify the right combination to add that finishing touch to their pride and joy.
As part of our affiliation with SCD, I will be attending certain member events so that supercar owners can talk to me directly. I will happily answer any questions and offer my advice free of charge, giving attendees at these events the chance to discover the latest information and matters of interest in the world of private number plates and hear up-to-date news and developments from the DVLA.
Are you a Supercar owner?
If you’re interested in finding out more, you can visit the Supercar Driver website and if you own one of their qualifying cars, you can apply for membership of this bespoke club and have the chance to come to one of their forthcoming events. You can get a taste of what goes on at the meetings by watching SCD-TV on YouTube and can also connect on Facebook and Twitter too.
Simply Registrations is delighted to have been accepted by SCD as their preferred industry partner. We can’t wait to meet with the members of Supercar Driver and look forward to working with this exclusive organisation.
DVLA Local Offices to Close – All Work to Transfer to Swansea
The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) Local & Regional Offices are scheduled to close by the end of 2013. All of the work currently handled at a local level is being centralised and will be processed at DVLA Headquarters in Swansea. We are currently in a transition period; some changes have been made and others are still being implemented. It has meant longer than usual turnaround times for number plate transfers and retention applications. This is having a knock-on effect in the motor trade with many car retailers unable to supply vehicles to their customers whilst they wait for important documents to arrive.
Summary of Changes so far:
1st May 2013 – All trade plate applications dealt with at DVLA Swansea
24th June 2013 – Post Office expands tax disc options
1st July 2013 – All cherished transfer & retention applications dealt with at DVLA Swansea
22nd July 2013 – Tax discs for new cars issued by DVLA Swansea. New law introduced allowing 14 day grace period for display of tax discs.
The change that concerns readers of this blog the most is the processing of all cherished number plate transfers and retention applications at DVLA Swansea. The stance from DVLA hasn’t changed and if you take a look at the official Twitter channel of the DVLA, the advice is to send all applications direct to Swansea. However, our experience suggests you will get a much quicker response if you take your application to the counter of your nearest DVLA Local Office.
From the 1st of July 2013 if you handed in your application at a Local Office it was batched up and sent to Swansea. DVLA headquarters were quickly swamped with an overload of work whilst staff in the Local Offices found their days were dragging as they had very little to do. A couple of weeks later some Local Offices were instructed to only send a small number of applications per day to Swansea – all others were to be processed in-house.
At Simply Registrations we still use the DVLA Leeds Office and will continue to do so until it closes on the 13th of December 2013. We are still able to complete same-day transfers at the counter when assigning a registration from a V750 or V778 to a vehicle. Cherished transfers and retention applications are not completed there and then, however the first part of the application which involves the issuing of a replacement tax disc & MOT Test Certificate is being handled at Leeds and the current turnaround time is 48/72 hours. The V5C Registration Certificates and V778 Retention Documents still take between 2 to 4 weeks to arrive from Swansea.
The hope is that eventually an online system will be introduced to enable much faster processing of cherished transfers and retention applications. Consultations investigating the possibility of making the paper tax disc obsolete, removing the insurance check when taxing a car and the probability that the paper MOT Test Certificate will be scrapped would surely help to speed things up.
For the time being the best available option is to make use of the DVLA Local Offices whilst they remain open for business. Not only does it seem to speed up turnaround times for plate transfers, you aren’t risking your application going missing in the post before it even arrives at DVLA HQ in Swansea. It is more important than ever before to make sure your application form is correctly completed. The staff at your nearest DVLA Office will check your paperwork at the counter whilst you are there. As some motor traders have recently discovered, it is incredibly frustrating to have your documents returned and your application rejected just because you forgot to sign the cheque or put a ‘x’ in the appropriate box on a V317 application form.
What is the new DVLA Integrated Enquiries Platform?
As many readers will be aware, the DVLA are currently developing and introducing new digital platforms in an effort to streamline their services and improve processes. One such digital system is the new Integrated Enquiries Platform, or IEP, which is being designed to make car insurance quotations much quicker and allow UK drivers to access details held about them without needing to deal directly with the DVLA. With the capacity to handle heavy traffic (pardon the pun), the IEP will provide a central enquiry platform which can also be used by approved organisations and the public sector.
How will the IEP help drivers looking to renew their insurance?
The IEP will hold up-to-date information on every licensed driver, including their full driving history, which will eliminate the need to provide this information to insurance companies every time you request a quotation. With this central point of reference, insurers will be able to supply prospective customers with a more efficient service and more accurate quotes, while simultaneously stopping less honest individuals from applying with false information – hopefully leading to safer roads and enhanced protection for everyone.
In addition to the above, the IEP also means that you’ll be able to check details for your own reference; you’ll be able to make sure that the DVLA has the right address for you and if you have any penalties on your licence.
Is your data safe?
With any complex digital system, the real challenge is always going to be keeping such a large amount of data safe – and it’s only natural that some drivers will be feeling a little uncomfortable about the possibility of unauthorised individuals being able to access their personal details. With strict rules governing the sharing of confidential data, it’s vital that the DVLA ensure that this aspect of the system is robust and reliable.
With that said however, such a large organisation will be well aware of dangers and the DVLA have offered the reassurance that strict data controls will be in place to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
Of course there are other concerns that could come to the fore too; hackers breaking their way into the system or the discovery that your details haven’t been uploaded correctly – which could subsequently inflate your insurance quotes. Hopefully, with the IEP being subject to rigorous user testing before its roll-out, all of these worries will be allayed and this new digital platform will prove to be a positive experience all round.
New Fixed Penalty Notices for Motoring Offences
The government has today announced new measures for the way certain motoring offences are to be handled. From July 2013 police will be able to punish motorists who hog the middle lane of the motorway by way of an on-the-spot fine. If you are caught driving whilst using a phone, or if you fail to wear a seatbelt you will be handed a £100 fine.
Further details of the new fixed penalties are shown in the image below:
“Careless drivers are a menace and their negligence puts innocent people’s lives at risk” said Road Safety Minister Stephen Hammond.
“That is why we are making it easier for the police to tackle problem drivers by allowing them to immediately issue a fixed penalty notice rather than needing to take every offender to court.”
For more information on this story you can click through to the Department for Transport table of changes for motoring fixed penalty offences: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/204614/fpn-table-new-levels.pdf