This is a log of my experience transferring my Australian driving license over to a UK license. You can drive on an Australian license in the UK for up to a year – I’ve been a UK resident for two years now. Unlike most reports of dealing with British bureaucracy, this is a happy one: thirty minutes to fill in a form, a £50 cheque, £9.60 of postage, 8 days pass, and I have a license. I can hardly believe it!

13:45 Wednesday April 16th 2008: I’ve just posted my license transfer documentation to the DVLA. You can pick up the required form (D1) from any UK post office, or order it online from the DVLA site (“D1 Pack.”)

Until recently you needed someone to sign the back of your photo, this person had to be a UK citizen and someone “reliable” who’s known you for at least 2 years (the details are all on this page – I do know people who qualify, but don’t see them often enough to remember to bring along forms for them to sign!) The only way around this was to visit a DVLA office to have your documents processed, however DVLA offices are few and far between – there are none in central London! My closest one is 1.5 hours of public transport away.

Today I picked up a fresh form and was delighted to note that you no longer need the photo signed if you send them a current passport. (At this time the last link above hasn’t been updated to reflect this and still indicates that only a UK/EC/EEA passport is good enough to avoid the signing requirement.) However you can’t have your non-UK passport verified at the post office using the “premium checking service,” so it means popping your passport and your Australian license in the post! Not something I’m comfortable with, but it does make the transfer easier to deal with. So I’m going to have to go without any photo-identification for a short while (up to 3 weeks.)

Filling out the form is straight-forward, no special details are required. You attach your photo and pop it into an envelope with your Australian license, passport, and a cheque for £50. The payment must be by personal cheque or postal cheque. (A postal cheque will cost about £4.50 extra, but most UK banks issue cheque books with current accounts so you can probably avoid that.) Interestingly, there is no requirement for proof-of-address documentation.

Because you’re putting your passport and license in the post you’re advised to use “special delivery” (registered post.) Also, because the DVLA will otherwise use normal 2nd-class post to return your passport you’re advised to enclose an additional self-addressed “special delivery” envelope. All up the postage cost me £9.20.

The form claims my passport will be sent back within 10 working days (2 weeks) and that, all going well, I should receive my license within 15 working days (3 weeks.) So, now I wait and see, I’ll continue this entry when the next license-application event occurs…

10:15 Thursday April 24th 2008: Licensed already! My UK photocard license arrived in the post just now, before 10:00. So, that’s basically a week. My license is valid until 2050 – none of this renewing every 5 years crap we put up with in Australia, you only need to renew once you turn 70. I had a normal NSW drivers license, suitable for standard vehicles with trailers up to some limit (can’t recall the limit.) My UK license covers the same (up to 3500kg and 8 passenger seats, trailer up to 750kg) but also explicitly covers quads/trikes less than 550kg, mopeds, agricultural tractors, and “mowing machine or vehicle controlled by a pedestrian.” License for a lawnmower?! Eh? A provisional license for motorcycles, “road rollers,” and “tracked vehicles” is also included, also valid until 2050.

There’s one really annoying thing about UK licenses though. There’s a “counterpart”, this is an A4 sheet of paper with additional details on it. The annoying part is “The photocard and paper counterpart should be kept together. Both must be produced when required.” It seems a bit insane really! In other words, just carrying your license card in your wallet isn’t good enough to drive, you need an A4 sheet of paper too. The sheet includes some extra data, namely a record of any driving offences you’ve committed or upgrades to your licensed vehicle categories. Anyway, to make this practical I’m now going to fold this A4 sheet up to an A8 size, so it can fit in my wallet! This makes my wallet fatter, which I hate.

Now I’m just worried that my passport hasn’t been returned yet. However the Royal Mail site tells me it is on the way (thanks to my provision of a special delivery envelope.) Reassuring!

11:41 Thursday April 24th 2008: I’m not the only one with driving licenses on the mind at the moment. All I can say is that I’m glad I got my license back in the good old days too (one theory test, one practical test, one year on “P plates”, then full license.) Australia always seems to be a bit “legislate first, ask questions later.” I heard recently that they’ve decriminalised Roquefort cheese at least, this actually happened in 2005, but I didn’t hear about it until mum mentioned it to me on Monday (yeah, I know “decriminalised” is probably a bit strong.) The insanity is that only Roquefort is decriminalised, no other unpasteurised-milk cheeses. It reminds me of the parents I see who have their children on leashes. Some days I have a strong desire to turn anarchist.

17:06 Thursday April 24th 2008: Royal mail special delivery envelope picked up from the concierge. Inside my passport and a note: “Your application for a driving license is being dealt with.” Somewhat amusing considering that the license has already been received.

A long while back I lived in Harris Park in Sydney and every day after Uni I’d walk home from Granville, Harris Park, or Parramatta station. On three occasions I had altercations on the way home. One wasn’t a problem. Another resulted in me getting 4 stitches in my forehead and losing a worthless mobile phone. The worst of the lot resulted in nothing more than a few bruises. As I wandered home I was approached by a group of youths, I’m not certain of the headcount but it was around 5. One of them asked me for a cigarette, I don’t smoke. Next thing: someone behind me hits me on the head. There was no choice in the matter it was fight and be thrashed or be thrashed anyway (sure, there’s probably some people out there who can fight off 5 attackers – I’m not one of them.) I resisted and got thrashed.

It’s an incident that has played on my mind ever since and altered my behaviour drastically. It wasn’t long before I moved out, found a safer area to live in (Dulwich Hill – inner west), then moved again to a very safe area (Wolstonecraft – northshore). When I move these days the first thing I check is police crime stats. When I inspect an area I spend more time noticing whether or not windows are barred, if there’s broken glass on the road, the level of graffiti, etc. Priority one is the risk-assessment. It’s not just when I’m moving home though, with every step I take I’m measuring up the security of the situation, on the look-out for threats… it isn’t a healthy mindset.

Yesterday in Sydney a 54 year old man was asked for a cigarette, he had none, he was stabbed several times and later died. This was at Granville station, could have been me 5 years ago. Harris Park and surrounds is still a total shit-hole, nothing changes. Don’t live there. Sadly a lot of people don’t have much choice, I was living in Harris Park because that’s where I could afford to live at the time I moved there. It’s a funny old world, with money comes the privilege of improving your chances of not being randomly killed by some arsehole. There’s something broken about that.

I knocked up some maps with Google during the week, to give an idea of where we’re going and how it relates to where we are. If the embedded maps don’t work out click on the title-links to get to the full-sized Google versions. With all these maps you can click on the icons and lines to get a description, there should also be a key on the left.

• First: Hitchin, Ricky, and Kat’s work – This shows that Hitchin (north) is significantly further out than Ricky (north-west), the respective “home” locations are shown with yellow house-shape icons. The difference isn’t as much as it seems though, the mapping projection Google uses has a finer scale in lat than long. The crow-line from Kat’s work to Ricky is about 2 thirds the length of the one to Hitchin (despite the fact that it’ll probably look half the length.) Also shown are the overground rail lines beyond the locations, notably in Ricky the line heads to Aylesbury then stops, while in Hitchin the lines extend throughout the UK – so other destinations are more accessible. I’ve also shown airports, while Hitchin has 2 that are fairly close (Luton, and Stansted) they’re not as useful as Heathrow (I’m turning into an airline-snob I’m afraid, preferring BA or Lufthansa to avoid being treated like cattle.) The green pin in the centre of London is Big Ben (Westminster/Parliament) and the one to the right is Greenwich. (Remember, you can drag the map around with the mouse!)

• London – This maps shows the city giving an idea of the city-end of Kat’s commute. The graphic reminiscent of a female toilet is where Kat works. The black line is the overground from Kings Cross to Hitchin, the purple line the underground (metro line) to Rickmansworth. Kat gets to work from Ricky in one trip, to get in from Hitchin will require switching to the underground at Kings X, but overall the two trips should take about the same time.

• Hitchin – In this close-up of Hitchin you can see the approximate location of our new place in relation to the train station (6 min walk) and town-centre and market (green pin, 15 minute walk.) Also shown is the continuing rail lines, the one on the right heads up to Cambridge and the other to Peterborough. These lines both continue on to reach almost everywhere in the upper half of the UK, and also provide routes through to everywhere else (though for more southern locations it is probably faster to go via London.) On the topic of travel, Kings Cross is the London terminus of the line from Hitchin and the same general station complex includes St. Pancreas, which is the station that trains to Paris depart from. I’ve also shown the closest chain-gym with a green cycling figure, it’s in Letchworth and is probably a 15 to 20 minute cycle away.

I was amused to receive a letter from my new bank that informed me that all the direct debits I’d had with my old bank had been transferred over to my new account. The amusing part is that included was a letter from me addressed to my old bank asking them to close the account and transfer any remaining funds to my new account. The letter, of course, printed using the nice bright letterhead of the new bank. Essentially saying: “Hey – we nabbed your customer. Har har.”

I’m not using their letter though. It isn’t because I care about hurting my old bank’s feelings or anything though, it’s because the letter has a WTF. The sentence: “Please action this on 31/12/9999.” Oooookaaaaaay. Not really in a hurry, eh? I guess they’ll get it in before the Y10K bug shuts down our robotic brains at least.