Taxi Driver Online

...although not actually unlicensed, by the looks of it...

Interesting, though - don't know how it works in other areas, but presumably Preston drivers are trusted to change their own plates over - nothing here to suggest the vehicle was actually unlicensed.

That was actually a thing here in NE Fife for a while - drivers were just given the new plates (when we moved away from the same undated plate the whole time the vehicle was licensed) which obviously most would change over at the earliest opportunity.

But, of course, some wouldn't, so now it often entails a bit more fannying about than if we were just trusted to change them over ourselves

(And I suppose it depends on the testing system etc - I think some council's testing regimes coincide with the plates, while others (like here in Fife) are a totally different system. So a new licence might require a new plate without an inspection, or whatever )

Don't want to blabber on about this again, but up here in Scotland you can apply right up to the expiry date, and the licence remains in force until the renewal is processed. Which can take several months, during which time the plate will be out of date...

And you can even present a replacement vehicle during that time, and they'll replace the plates with new ones several months out of date

That's what happened to me when I last applied for my (three-year) plate, and several months later took a new vehicle in for testing, and they put a new plate on which showed a December expiry date. And this was well into March

Spoke to another driver recently who's going through the same thing - he was the one who took a newly-MoTd, low-mileage car in for inspection as a replacement, and was failed on three tyres 'cuts to the cord'

And, like me, I think he said his insurer is getting uppity and threatening to cancel his policy because he doesn't have a new (paper) licence. You'd think by now they'd be aware that Scottish councils have nine months to process the renewal application, during which time the old licence is still, er, extant

But ended up blabbering on anyway

I couldn't possibly comment.

Down here, our plates aren't dated, therefore we don't have to fanny around changing them every year.

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IDFIMH