Hiring a car abroad? Are you ‘au fait’ with the new licence rules?

Now we know that hiring a car in France can be painful at the best of times (is there really no solution to how long it takes to go through the collection process??) but a recent change to UK law means that it may now become more complicated.

As from June 8th, 2015 the DVLA is no longer issuing the paper part of the licence that is normally provided with the photo card licence.

The paper licence used to show details of any endorsements, penalty points etc., what class of vehicle you can drive and expiry date of the document.

The DVLA have advised drivers to destroy the paper section, however the AA has warned motorists who are planning to travel abroad that the hire car companies may not be aware of the new changes and may still request to see it.

The DVLA advises that you print off an up to date version of your driving licence, plus get a passcode that allows the car hire company to view your licence online.

Does this seem like a bit of a faff? It does to us.

So here’s a step-by-step guide if hiring a car abroad:

1. DVLA recommends you get a new paper copy of your licence and a passcode.
2. To get a print version long on to gov.uk and ‘View Driving Record’ service by entering your driving licence number, national insurance number and postcode, and you will be able to print off a pdf version of your licence to give to the car hire company.
3. To get a passcode log on to gov.uk as above, and ‘View Driving Record’ by following the same process above. Once logged on click on ‘Share your licence information’. This produces a unique code which can be given to the car hire company to allow them to access your details online.
4. IMPORTANT NOTE: you should only generate this pass code 72 hours before travelling as the code only lasts 3 days. And if the car hire firm logs out of the system they will not be able to log back in.

What do you think about this new ‘cost-efficient’ system? Think it will be successful?