UK driving licence Photocard
The UK driving licence Photocard was introduced in 1998 to replace the old paper licences. However, the photo card comes with a paper licence counterpart. This is currently used for recording convictions, points and entitlements. The UK driving licence photo card has to be updated every 10 years to allow an update of the photo I.D. All points and conditions are recorded electronically and will be updated and changed once they expire – by DVLA.
Fields 1, 2 and 3 of your UK driving licence display your surname, first names, date and place of birth.
Field 4, 4a, and 4b. Date of driving licence issue, photo expiry, issuing authority (4):
The date displayed in 4a is the date the UK driving licence Photocard was issued.
4b displays the date the photocard must be renewed and
4c. displays the authority that issued the UK driving licence (DVLA).
Driver number (5): It’s that thing at number 5. It’s called your “Driver Number”, in fact.
If surname is less than five characters in length, the remaining spaces will comprise of the digit 9.
It’s the first five letters of your surname, right-filled with ‘9’ if your surname is less than five letters long, so
Cholmondley-Warner – CHOLM
Walton – WALTO
Kelly – KELLY
Kell – KELL9
Fox – FOX99
- 849339 – First and last numbers are the year of birth. Second and third numbers are month of birth. (Note: in the case of female driving licence holders, ‘5’ is added to the second digit, this means that the second digit will be 5 or 6). The fourth and fifth digits are the day of the month of your birth.
- TS – The first two initials of your forenames. If you have only one initial then the second character will be a ‘9’.
- 8AD –
The last two letters are issued by DVLA and serve to make the driver number unique, or reasonably so. While it’s very likely someone will share my date of birth and gender, it’s highly unlikely they’ll share date of birth, gender, last name and initials. Even if they do, there are 576 combinations of two letters for the last two letters on your UK driving licence.
It also means the Driver Number is difficult to guess. While the name, DoB and gender of, say, the Prime Minister are a matter of public record, you’ve only a 1 in 576 chance of guessing her Driver Number. Somebody would notice if you did get it right (and it’s of no use to anybody even if guessed right). Check someone’s driving licence information
In the United Kingdom, a driving licence is the official document which authorises its holder to … Applications for a provisional driving licence can be made in the UK from the age of 15 years and 9 months. … UK driving licence. No trailer may be towed, except when driving a tractor or where a full licence gives provisional entitlement to drive a ...11 Mar 2014 — Each licence holder in England, Scotland and Wales has a unique driver number, which is 16 characters long. The characters are constructed … get full uk driving license online