More government stupidity.

[John Rumm]

Yes, when the web site says "enter the unique reference number from your form, its printed in the yellow box, here is a picture of a yellow box just in case you are really dense" it must be the dumb end uses fault for lack of perception just because his form seems to have an empty yellow box with no number in it - yet again for the nth year running. No doubt the reference number would be a clear as day if only he was a little smarter.

Still after ten mins of being told that all the likely looking numbers strewn about the form and otherwise unidentified *aren't* the number the site wants, he goes back to the registration mark and a reference from the logbook once he has searched the filing cabinet to find it.

It would be too hard to expect a big computer to be able to cope with time spans of more than 15 days I guess.

No well, indeed. Here is a reminder to do something that you can't do yet. By the time you can do it you will have forgotten, but we won't remind you about that. In fact all we really wanted to do was waste a stamp at your expense. Yes we know that you bought one online last year, but no, we can't email you a reminder on the right day...

Yes we will print half the things you need to take in such a way as it is obvious, but bury the other half in the small print of the form. Software is very difficult to write you know, you can't expect us to have it print a nice list of all the things to bring on one place and in a consistent font and layout.

Yes well it is not like insurance and MOT records are held electronically or anything now is it? I mean just because the web site can check these things automatically, how on earth would you expect a post office to be able to do this. They use different sized electricity for a start!

Well that is just daft, I mean I know that is who you are actually paying, but since when did you start going about writing out cheques to people and putting *their* name on it?

The horror of it. How unreasonable to expect to pay for car tax in the same way as you could anything else? These newfangled ideas people get. Next thing you know they will be expecting automatic renewal of their car tax charged to DD or a cc of their choice.

Yes, well obviously the car will have spontaneously ceased to exist in that sort of time frame, so it makes no sense to want to tax it now.

Of course the highly professional staff at that elite organisation will never contribute to these conflicts....

perhaps by suggesting that "You can't renew that now, two days before the end of the month, because that MOT runs out in a week, that's not really long enough, we like to see at least a fortnight to run on it"

After 20 mins standing in a queue: "Oh, you need to queue up at till number one for tax discs", "Why should we put up a sign? It should be obvious, what are you; stupid?"

or "yes I know you might never of heard of a Subaru before, but that does not mean I want you to write Sunbeam on the tax disc for me, trust me I can read the makers name off the back of the car, and look it is written on this nice form here"

Just as well they can still hope to find gainful employment at a post office then, otherwise they would be doomed.

[Andy Hall]

Why have an earliest date? Why not have a much longer time window?

This would be reasonable since the money is for the DVLA, other than writing cheques is ridiculous anyway.

That would be entirely reasonable.

If the time window of the reminder were reasonable, this wouldn't be an issue.

There shouldn't be a queue if it were properly staffed. This is one of the reasons why I steadfastly avoid having anything to do with the post office if I can possibly avoid it. It is of the same mind set as organisations like the NHS - there needs to be a queue in order that its customers think that they are getting something of value.

The DVLA should outsource their collections elsewhere.

[Dave]

That has been a problem all the way through this government :-(

Dave

[Owain]

Of course, but let's keep things simple for the grockles from diybanter :-)

Owain

[Dave]

Thanks for that Andy. I will be in the same situation come next October. Both the first MOT and insurance will be due at the same time. Next april, I will tax it for 6 months to split it apart.

Dave

[Dave]

I did that with the 'tother' car. I was driving it around for 6 months without an MOT :-(

Dave

[Andy Hall]

It also has the advantage that the costs are more evenly spread over the year.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It's an offence to have it on before time anyway.

The expiry date and the period is written on it..easy enough to check.

[Andy Hall]

The time window is 10 days in reality. You can't apply before 15 days before the time and they say that that a new disk can take 5 days to arrive.

Come to think of it, why are we f*cking about with a silly round bit of paper anyway? The DVLA has a database of vehicle ownerships, numbers and registrations as well as MOT and insurance.

Who checks for absent/expired tax disks? The old bill, I believe, and they also have access to said data.

On line payment or a direct debit would be a far more appropriate means to collect the tax revenue, and if they must, send out a receipt by email.

[Frank Erskine]

I believe traffic wardens and parking attendants also have 'powers' to check tax discs.

[Tim Ward]

Yet another failure to think in a sufficiently criminal fashion. All you'd have to do then is make sure, when you put false number plates on your vehicle, that you've picked the number of someone who has paid their tax. Forging the piece of paper is supposed to more difficult than forging number plates.

[Andy Hall]

Even more reason to abolish them.... and tax discs.

A far better role for these people (which would still reasonably be covered by their job title) would be to do valet parking. This would fulfill their original purpose and be far more useful to their customers.

[Graeme]

I cannot discuss the rights and wrongs of renewing online, or by telephone, as it is not something I have tried. I have, though, been taxing my own vehicles for nearly forty years, and have yet to experience a problem - the current system is a lot easier and quicker than the old systems.

Do your insurance renewal documents not arrive before the renewal date? Mine do.

You would visit B&Q, purchase a Black and Dekker drill, and expect payment to be to Black & Dekker?

Discussing how the system *should* work is pointless. It doesn't. Lobby your MP. Lobby DVLA - they make the rules. All I'm trying to say is that the current system is generally flawless at my PO - the only problems are caused by people who will not look at the form.

There are two classes of people - the first could perhaps be described as 'educationally challenged'. The don't know, and know they don't know, so bring every piece of paper they can find to the PO, where their friendly sub postmaster (i.e. me) sorts the wheat from the chaff, and issues a disk. Easy. Painless. Fast.

The second type of person knows everything, thinks all rules and regulations are for other people, wants to tax his new Range Rover even though the certificate of insurance clearly refers to the Subaru he sold six months ago, and is generally a PITA. Never wrong, always loud, nothing is *ever* his (or her) fault.

A final thought - POs *want* to issue MVLS, believe me. Desperately. When your application is rejected at the PO counter, it hurts the sub postmaster more than it hurts the applicant.

[Mike Clarke]

It puzzles me why they insist on originals of insurance certificates these days. They're invariably just printouts from laser printers, a good photocopy would be virtually identical.

[Andy Hall]

Return on investment?

There are three different problems to solve.

1) People with legitmately owned and plated cars who don't or forget to pay for their VED. This doesn't require the issuance of a silly piece of paper in order to detect and seek out the money. 2) People with legimitely owned cars who put on false number plates in order to avoid paying congestion charges or to carry out petty crime such a petrol station driveaways. Rather stupid, I agree, but the DVLA still get their tax money. 3) People who steal cars and replate them in order to carry out some more serious crime. It's quite likely that tax would have been paid by the legitimate owner, but if not, it's not likely that £200 of tax evasion is the most serious aspect of the case.

So the piece of paper is quite useless in terms of ensuring that tax has been paid.

OTOH, if the objective is to establish legitimate ownership of the car, then it fails as well.

- The piece of paper is too small to be read on a moving vehicle either by eye or by camera

- Unless the vehicle is parked somewhere likely to attract "official attention" it is highly unlikely that the disc would be seen.

It certainly isn't useful as an alternative to number plates. If those can be cloned and falsified easily, it is that issue that needs to be fixed.

[Andy Hall]

It is identical.

I renewed my insurance with an on line supplier. The certificate is emailed as a PDF and does meet the legal requirements when printed.

If some bureaucratic idiot in a post office wants to play funny buggers because he lives in a culture of paper pushing, that's his problem and all the more reason not to use the post office.

[Andy Hall]

Abolishing a system involving the shunting round of bits of paper - MOT certificates, insurance certificates, tax renewal form, cheques, tax disc would be an even greater step forward. That's five unnecessary pieces of paper and the waste of fuel and time visiting the post office.

Yes they do and you can initiate the renewal to be effective from the required date.

Is the post office entering into a contract of supply for the tax disc? No. It is purely a collection method.

There's no need to have a form in the first place.

Unnecessary

Also unnecessary.

It's a very weak business proposition to be operating a collection system involving pushing around pieces of paper and expecting people to do the running around to assemble them.

There are numerous others right through to the selling of stick on stamps that are completely pointless.

It's all the hangover of a bygone era so hardly surprising that the post office system is in terminal decline. The intended postal strike, although not specifically part of this will knock a few more nails into the coffin from business that will be lost, never to return.

While one can appreciate the plight of the sub postmaster, if their livelihood depends wholely or largely on their PO activity, wither directly or indirectly (pull through business) they are clearly going to run into a problem if they don't diversify into something else.

[Graeme]

So, exactly the same as a tax disk, then.

One could argue that collecting a drill at B&Q is exactly the same.

Once again you are arguing against a system that is in place, which is pointless. There must be millions of motorists who feel the same. Whinging achieves nothing - do something positive to change the system, if you don't like it. This is, after all, supposedly a democracy.

Because they are the most profitable regular transaction we handle.

Yes, of course it is, as is the 'gas board', the NHS, and any other government (national or local) department. There are tier upon tier of these people, most of whom have nothing to do but count paper clips. Whilst that is perhaps not quite true, it seems to me that there is a huge duplication of effort, not to mention job protection, and an attitude of 'Why change, we have always done it like that'. You know it, I know it, but if a system exists, whether to tax your car or pay your council tax, you have little option but to follow the system. Which is not to say that the system is correct, or should not be changed.

[Graeme]

In message , Andy Hall writes

The bureaucratic idiot in the PO has *very* strict rules to follow, as laid down by DVLA. DVLA have ruled that a home printed pdf certificate of insurance is *not* acceptable as proof of insurance. The problem, of course, is spotting them, so we don't :-)

[John Rumm]

Online is promoted as all part of the system... flawed as the rest of it it seems to be.

So do mine. If they arrive, and I phone up and say "yes please I would like to renew", they don't say oh sorry sir, you can't do that til the

15th. They are happy to comply. In fact if I take no action, then they assume that all is well and renew for me.

Depends on if you view the PO as a retailer, adding value to the transaction, or simply a handling agent for DVLA.

It seems to me that if the PO is going to act as B&Q in your example above, then how they take payment is down to the PO not my MP or DVLA. You can't have it both ways! ;-)

You raised the concept of someone wanting to pay by cc as a failing of their intelligence etc. I was simply highlighting that it was a perfectly sensible thing to want to do.

Or people who look at the form, and do not pick up all the relevant points due to its poor design.

educationally challenged? Is it fair to assume that everyone should be fully aware of *all* of the requirements of every form obsessed organisation that they need to deal with? Is it fair to question their intelligence when they dont?

Yup, I sympathise with you on that. However you meet this type of person in all walks of life. On occasion I have met them sitting behind the glass in a post office.

So the easier you can make the process then the better it is for you and your customers. Online checking of MoT and insurance docs plus payment by CC would solve a good many problems for both of you.