I got one of those a couple of years ago - for a car that was still mine, I had all the documentation in order and the car was parked outside my house at the time. DVLA are certainly not infallible!
I have signed the petition, though not because I think that renewing a SORN is a dreadful chore, but because I think that the penalty for not renewing is excessive for the gravity of the "crime".
Jim
Jim Warren wibbled
That's my reasoning. To financially punish someone if they forget to conmfirm what's already on record is a bit much, methinks.
On or around Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:54:47 -0000, "GbH" enlightened us thusly:
Well, yeah. It's so they know where to send tax demands, mainly. I'm not sure "they" would allow a setup where they couldn't keep tabs on us all though... so a petition or any other action to scrap vehicle registration is foredoomed. The change to SORN should make sense and emphasising the waste of resources is most likely to work at the moment when everyone is supposed to be getting more efficient.
funnily enough, they mostly seem to try to implement the greater efficiency by adding more managers. This, of course, doesn't work.
What's your definition of doing it properly?
I've given an example of how the current system works, what alternative would you propose and how would it be as effective at checking the process of transferring ownership has been completed correctly?
In this case the vehicle wound up with an honest scrappy who was prepared to help me sort the problem. It's not difficult to envisage other less desirable and more costly results ;(
Registration is not proof of ownership!
What's 'the problem' that needed sorting, a totalitarian process that doesn't benefit you in any way?
A follow-up letter from the DVLA would do fine, the idea that the whole yearly repeated SORN business is justifiable because it can flag up that the process didn't complete is daft. For a start, if you SORN a car then sell it the next day and send off the V5, it'll be a year before you get notification that the V5 didn't get there.
Unless I'm mising something if the vehicle had wound up back on the road it would have been me that got the letters about speed cameras, parking tickets and maybe even congestion charges?
The central record of vehicle "ownership" is used for many purposes, some good and some not so good, aslong as it is used for these purposes I believe that it is in all of our interests to keep it as accurate as possible and that an annual SORN is more effective at this as anything else would be.
I think Austins already covered this, a followup letter is fine, but in the event of someone (thats me in thecase I highlighted) forgetting to followup if that letter isn't received an annual SORN serves as a reminder.
I'm afraid that there are perfectly sane thinking people out here that think the current system is OK. They're not trollsand they have thought it through for themselves!
It shows you are the registered keeper. A receipt for purchase proves ownership. You've not really thought this one through, have you?
I've just taxed the car online this afternoon. Took all of 5 minutes - even using this rather slow browser. Can't see declaring SORN taking any longer and anyone posting here has obviously access to a computer. So to me as a principle it's making a mountain out of a molehill - unless there are hidden agendas behind the proposal.
It's hardly suitable. As I said, it can be up to a year after the event that you get the "reminder" and the "reminder" letters aren't guaranteed themselves, if you could forget the followup letter, or if that followup letter isn't received, then the same thing can happen with the yearly SORN reminders.
Not really. It's not suitable as a means of confirming correct transfer of ownership, the fact that it can do so in a very untimely and unreliable fashion is a byproduct of the excessive beaurocracy that it signifies.
I think you've hit a point there, apart from my wish for someone to attempt to justify 'registration' it would seem repetitive SORN is merely an admission that DVLA are not fit for purpose in that they cannot be trusted to keep records! I'm currently attempting to register my new acquisition. Swansea claim they cannot do it because I am not resident in Mainland UK, wherever that is, Coleraine refuse to recognise Swansea's documentation and require me to complete a new registration application by hand. FFS is it any surprise I think they're all a waste of space!
GbH ("GbH" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
It's that big kinda islandy thing, generally known as Great Britain, and consisting of England, Scotland, Wales. If you aren't resident in one of those three, then - no, you don't register your car with DVLA Swansea.
So you're in NI? Right. So you don't register with Swansea. Next.
And that's Swansea's fault? How?
I'm sure the feeling's reciprocated.
However the documentation V5? insists one does!
And there was me thinking it was now joined up government.
I very much doubt they could find their arse with both hands let alone feel their ineptitude exists!
GbH ("GbH" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Re-read it. If you're taking it outside GB, it doesn't.
Whatever, so obtuse that the process becomes incredably boring.
I did and cannot find anything to that effect, maybe it's in the Welsh on the back?
The correspondence from Swansea specifically said Mainland UK, which is ficticious and not GB which is the statutary entity!
How can Mainland UK be fictitious? It's a socking great lump of terra firma, if it doesn't exist I'd have sunk on my way back home tomight ;)
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