Planning on hiring a car on your hols this year? You could be in trouble

Road trip abroad on the cards?

Be warned: British holiday goers could be about to find themselves refused by holiday car hire firms as of today that DLVA are getting rid of the paper counterpart that usually comes with UK photocard driving licences, in place of a digital only system.

This might not seem like a biggy but it does mean that you’ll no longer be able to hire a car at short notice by using the the usual paper counterpart for the relevant security/safety checks run by the hire companies. Instead you’ll be asked to log onto the DVLA website the day before you’re hiring a car (because holiday planning isn’t already stressful enough…), where you’ll be asked to input your driving license number before being issued with a special code.

The passcode can then be used by the car hire company to check for any endorsements or driving bans. Previously, the paper counterpart would be used to process these checks but from early June they will be rendered useless.

Even more crucially, this code will only be valid for 72 hours before you’ll be forced to apply for a new one. Meaning that if you are intending to hire a car on your holiday you’ll need to do some serious forward planning if you don’t want to be refused.

The system is set to be in place from today, so make a note of it now if you don’t want your holiday road trip plans ruined before you even hop into the driver's seat.

Now breathe.