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Has your UK plated
car taken a current MOT test?
The UK
Driving Agency has on its web site information as to whether your vehicle
has taken a current MOT and whether or not it failed. The web address is
www.motinfo.gov.uk/. But just think; if you can look easily look for
this information, so can the authorities here in Spain when they stop your
UK-plated vehicle that may have been here illegally too long. So all those
who have a UK vehicle that is overdue for an MOT, be aware. An ITV is
not legally acceptable here and will cause the police to suspect that if you
have taken one, the vehicle should be on Spanish plates.
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Motorcycles now due for ITVs.
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LOST YOUR
DRIVING LICENCE?
One of the
ongoing problems that expats who move to Spain seem to have problems with is
the knowledge of the legality of their driving licences (DLs) and
also what to do if it is lost. The legalities and the losses are all
covered in detail in my book within the 228 pages that are vital knowledge
for expat drivers here and, at only €22, 95 it is the cost of a lunch for
two in a modest bar so I should not really need to write the following, but
here goes. I have also written much about the subject in recent articles
and talked about it on REM.FM radio and RTV 340 television. To save me
keeping having to answer repetitive emails and phone calls on the subject,
the book, which makes a nice birthday/Christmas present for the driver in
your life will also make your driving here much safer and less stressful.
People
still email me with reports about especially mandatory medicals that some
people give here, who should know but obviously do not and give the wrong
advice. These include insurance brokers, the Spanish medical clinics where
the periodical medicals are taken and some of the smaller gestorias. They
say that medicals are not necessary for expats with foreign EU driving
licences despite all the evidence to the contrary. My information has been
approved by Spanish lawyers and a top gestoria in Marbella as well as my
having it in writing in both Spanish (Ministerio Del Interior letter on my
web-site) and in English (EU Directives) and although those who are still
illegal want to believe that it is not true because they are human and want
to take the easiest path, please resist and take the correct action. To not
do so could easily lead you into a fine and losing penalty points (yes, as a
resident in Spain with a foreign EU-DL), as well as possibly not having an
insurance claim payout for damage to your vehicle. Please read the written
facts and believe them.
Now losing
your DL can be for say three reasons and there may be more. Either you
have physically lost it, OR you have been legally banned from
driving for motoring offences for medical reasons where you are declared
unfit to drive either permanently or for a period of time. The third
is that you have inadvertently let it expire. If you have lost a UK-DL, as
a resident now in Spain, you can obtain a D737 Certificate form which is
issued by the DVLA giving all your current license classifications so you
can easily use it to obtain a Spanish DL How to do it is in my book,
including obtaining the correct forms in Spain from the Internet. But, unless
you have a permanent British address, you cannot obtain a new UK DL, and
as a resident here where Spain is your principal home, you are also breaking
the law to do so.
OFFERS OF NEW EU DRIVING
LICENCES FROM UNOFFICIAL SOURCES.
I see once
again that the offers are being advertised for the supply of a genuine EU
driving licence for a country, usually Eastern European to replace the one
you have lost or even for a classification for which you have not passed a
test. Also, if you have been declared medically unfit to drive. The law
states in the relevant EU Directive, when you move to another EU country to
reside there as you new place of principal residence, you may exchange your
existing CURRENT EU DL for one issued by the new country of residence.
Offers are being made again of supplying drivers with a genuine DL from
countries such as Hungary often without the driver having to even go to that
country to collect it. I make no accusations as to how they are officially
issued to a non-resident of any of these EU countries and the advertising
blurb even suggest that you can obtain a licence for such vehicles as HGVs;
without taking a driving test? God and the law protect us from being on the
same roads as these drivers who have not passed the test.
The EU
Directive and laws of most member states (all are bound by the Brussels
Directives anyway) are that you are not allowed to have more than one
driving licence document in your possession except for an International
Driving Licence which has to be accompanied by the original DL anyway. The
IDL is merely a translation in several major languages to help the
authorities in countries outside of the EU to understand your original
DL. See:
www.spainvia.com/IDLhome.htm for more information. It is also an
offence also to be carrying a driving licence issued by an EU country where
you are not legally residing as stated in the Directive, i.e. 183 plus days
a year but at the roadside you may get away with a police check. BUT, if
an accident occurs where you especially are liable or potentially so, the
lawyers (for the other driver) know the regulations and you can end up with
charges of driving with no DL, no insurance and possibly also fraud. So my
advice is to think carefully before you seriously consider obtaining such a
DL. From 2012, all new DLs, including re-issued ones after a medical, etc,
will be EU wide anyway, and Trafico, the DVLA, etc. will eventually have
access to the records of all EU countries. Existing DLs will be legal until
they expire and the changeover is expected to be completed by 2032.
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BIG BROTHER IS STILL
COMING.
Although my chosen subject is
Motoring in Spain,
I often mention new trends or possible pending new legislation in other EU
countries because many of the changes there are soon considered by Brussels
(or Strasbourg) for installation throughout the EU. Many are good ideas as
they are based on the correct studies of why accidents happen and what can
be done to prevent them. Many accidents should not be considered as being
so, but as “silly incidents” for if drivers and riders obeyed the existing
laws and also used common sense, we would all be much safer as we move
around the roads. Drinking and driving, using a mobile phone without a
hands-free while driving including, would you believe, while typing in text
messages, are things that should not be done under any circumstances for it
has been proven countless times that they do cause accidents, but drivers
still do it regularly as the relatives of the nine Finish tourists
“murdered” by the hopelessly drunken driver in April this year on the Costa
Del Sol by a driver doing, according to police evidence, over 150 kph in the
pouring rain causing the bus taking the tourists to the airport and home, to
crash. This, I will argue with anyone was yet another totally unnecessary
incident. I write “murdered” for if the driver had been sober and driving
properly, those people would be back in the bosoms of their families in
Finland now, as well as, of course, the local driver. Driving drunk was a
premeditated action on his part no other excuse can be made. As often
happens though, he survived ad will now possibly spend time being kept by
taxpayers at “His Majesty’s pleasure” as the old saying used to go, and his
family is ruined as well. All for a few glasses of alcohol.
I
have mentioned that the UK government is considering the same mandatory
medical periods system as in Spain. Already with the photo-card DLs
(driving licences) we have most EU countries now a ten year expiration
period due to the photo obviously for most of us being out of date after ten
years, especially us men who have this habit of losing the thatch that keeps
the rain off our heads. As I have written before, check the front of your UK
DL for the expiry date: 4 C. In Spain, this is covered with the DLs expiring
for the different classifications due to a mandatory medical being due, and
for expats residents here with a legal UKK-DL this also applies despite what
you have been told by those who do not really know. The latest suggestion
that the UK government is trying to adopt at great cost to the taxpayers is
the installation in all vehicles of
speed limiting devices
so that vehicles cannot exceed a preset speed limit. When the vehicle
approaches the speed limit maximum set for that zone, the accelerator is
controlled by the device, not the driver’s foot or hand (motorcycles) and so
cannot exceed the limit. Very dodgy if you are overtaking but then if you
know the system, you do not then overtake.
At
this time the maximum speed that we are legally allowed to drive
on the open roads
is not more than 20
kph above the signed limit
so that an overtaking manoeuvre can be safely executed.
Did you know that? Not many people do in my experience but if you have my
book, you should do and it is important to know for if you are overtaking
where it is considered safe and legal to do so and a mobile (or fixed) radar
clocks you at say 120 kph in a 100 kph zone while you are overtaking, you
could argue your innocence within the law, using a lawyer of course for the
Courts everywhere like to keep their professionals employed.
In
this day and age, with the digital electronic age upon us, it is possible to
have transmitting units that send a signal to all traffic passing a point
where the limit changes so that until that speed zone is passed through to
another limit, no vehicles except official and emergency ones can exceed
that limit because the speed limiter in each vehicle will be automatically
reset for that zone. There are benefits, of course, for when all vehicles
are fitted with such a device, there will be no need for speed cameras again
and the UK government and local authorities will lose millions in lost
speeding fines. The cry from those of us who are thinkers experienced in
these matters though is the fact that, especially the UK government,
computers and government are like oil and water and should be allowed only
due to great need.
And
for UK government, read all EU governments. A good time to take up
employment as a salesman of such devices, although all new vehicles will be
fitted with them at the factory: if it happens. The claims in the UK are
that accidents will be reduced by up to 42%, but they are forgetting one
fact. Electronic whiz-kids will soon make up a device within the car, but
not connected to it, for over-riding the speed limiter. Also, people are
getting fed up with the interference of government in their everyday lives
where services are failing but the public is forced to pay more anyway.
The punishments for speeding are adequate except for when a driver has no DL
being banned or just illegal, and subsequently no insurance. Want my
opinion? (You are going to get it anyway.) Make it mandatory especially
for drivers up to age 25 OR for the first ten years of driving after the
test, and voluntary for all the rest of us with the bonus that we all
receive an additional 25% discount on our insurance premiums. Or if you
are found guilty of a serious speeding offence, you have, say a year “on the
box” where your vehicle's speed is limited to say 80 kph (50 mph) as are the
first year probationers here in Spain. (After passing the driving
test, all drivers are limited to a maximum speed anywhere 80 kph and must
display a green "L-plate" in the rear window). But those such as pop-stars
who can afford several vehicles can get out of that restriction.
But just think too that if a stolen vehicle is unable to speed, no more
hazardous police high speed chases ending in disasters. No point in trying
to escape.
The
general cry in the UK though is one of horror as one more “freedom” is taken
away from road users. As I have said before, the
golden age of motoring is
over,
the days when I had a fast motorcycle in the 1950s and 60s that on the old
narrow roads would leave even E-type jaguars and Porsches (mainly because
with a very competent driver they would still get stuck behind other
vehicles or the owners drove them for the image more than the sheer joy of
driving very fast on roads where there were no limits out of the towns.
Although I would love to be 25 again, somehow, it would not be the same on
the roads now. I would probably soon lose my DL as a result of riding my
"280 kph motorcycle" within its designed abilities.
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