An Aberdeen man has handed back the keys to the car he was left unable to drive for nine months due to DVLA delays.
Simon Barrett has launched an online campaign calling for reform after waiting almost nine months to get his driving licence reinstated following a medical matter.
It comes as SNP MP Peter Grant told Westminster that people with medical conditions and disabilities are suffering “gross discrimination” from the DVLA.
Mr Grant, MP for Glenrothes, said the contrast in service for those with and those without medical conditions is “almost certainly unlawful”, and warned the government could be facing “a massive compensation bill if they do not get their act together pronto”.
In Mr Barrett’s case, he voluntarily handed his licence back in September 2020 due to a medical issue.
When the 76-year-old got the all-clear from his consultant in June 2021, he applied to have his licence reinstated.
The DVLA application was acknowledged in October but he only got it back on March 4 – almost nine months after he got the all-clear.
Pensioner launched social campaign
That same weekend, Mr Barrett traded in the car he never got the chance to drive as a result of the delays.
He said: “I’ve owned it 18 months and not driven it. I bought it in November 2020 and was expecting to get my licence back in September 2021, as the DVLA says you have to go a year without.
“The consultant told me to apply in June because there was a backlog they were processing, which was blamed on Covid and union troubles.
“Before Christmas, I patiently waited knowing they were under burden. As we got into new year, I started to get a bit more impatient and contacted my MP, but he got nowhere.”
While pushing for a resolution, Mr Barrett took to Facebook for the first time to set up a record of his experience, also sharing some humorous cartoons highlighting the DVLA delays.
‘When you get to 76, every day is precious’
Through this, he found out he was just one of hundreds of thousands of people in the UK impacted by the DVLA backlog.
“I set up a Facebook page having never used it before. I didn’t know where to stop, the ideas kept coming in. But, they weren’t reacting,” he added.
“There are 800,000 others, there are nurses, lorry drivers, children waiting for their first driving license. There are all sorts of stories and it’s just not good enough.
“There was somebody on Facebook who waited three years, and I don’t have three years. I can’t guarantee in three years time having not driven I’ll get back to it.
“When you get to 76 each day is precious and I wasn’t waiting around for them. It’s taken a lot of nagging in the new year to get it back now.”
Mr Barrett believes without his online campaign he would still be waiting to hear back from the licensing agency.
Fighting for reform
He hopes by sharing his own experience, and highlighting the delays affecting others, it can lead to “DVLA reform”.
He continued: “When I first started Facebook, I was being selfish, but as I saw all these people in a much more serious state than I regarded mine – and I regarded mine as serious. I started saying it needs really showing up to the point they need to do something for these people.
“I want reform. I’m going to try and support anything that others do towards reform. I’m not after compensation or anything like that. I’ve never done anything like this before. They say everybody’s got one fight in them, this is mine.”
A DVLA spokesman said the agency is reliant on information from a driver’s doctors when there is a medical condition present, which may impact processing times.
He said: “More complex transactions, for example if medical investigations are needed, will take longer and where we require additional information, such as from a driver’s doctor where a medical condition is present, we would be wholly reliant on receiving this information before a decision can be made.
“Such checks were understandably deprioritised by the NHS during the pandemic, impacting processing times.”
Westminster discuss DVLA delays
MP Mr Grant, however, told the Commons that such delays need addressed promptly.
He said he is aware of at least one case of someone waiting 10 months, “quite a few” waiting six months, and of “several” losing conditional job offers owing to the waiting times.
He said: “It’s having a real impact on people’s lives.”
HGV driver James Porterfield, 60, said he lost his job as a result of a five-month wait while renewing his licence, while 17-year-old Jennifer Kirchacz, from Fife, who has epilepsy, said a seven-month wait for her provisional licence is impacting her career and social life.
Mr Grant believes it is “gross discrimination” as those with a medical condition use an “outdated manual system” rather than the online one.
The DVLA has acknowledged the “vast majority” of applicants waiting 10 weeks or more have a medial condition that must be investigated, with successful online applicants receiving their licence within days.
Mr Grant said: “It doesn’t mean that anyone at DVLA has deliberately decided to discriminate, but if you look at the end product, one group of people is getting a very good service, one group of people is getting shockingly bad service and the characteristics, that group of people have, don’t justify that level of difference in the service.
“It justifies a degree of delay, it justifies the fact that it takes longer, it doesn’t justify the fact that some people get their licence in three days, and for some people it takes 10 months.”
Mr Grant also believes such delays also have potential safety implications, warning long waiting times could lead to people not disclosing their full medical histories.
Delays could continue until September
The DVLA said before the pandemic there were normally about 400,000 applications being processed at any one time, but there are currently just over 900,000.
Its paper applications peaked at 1.6 million in September last year, the DVLA said.
Transport Minister Trudy Harrison, in response to a written parliamentary question, said as of February 4 there were 178,926 driving licence renewal applications that had taken 10 weeks or more.
“The vast majority of these are applications where a medical condition must be investigated before a licence can be issued to ensure the required medical standards are met”, she said.
The DVLA said paper application services currently have longer waiting times and it says the service is expected to recover by the end of May, with medical services expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by September.