Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) Regulations 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations further amend the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1996 as follows.

1.  Regulation 4 and Schedule 1 amend the fees payable upon an application for a driving licence made on or after 1st April 1999.

• Driving licence fees were last increased on 1st July 1998. Save for the exception mentioned below, the following table shows that where an existing fee is that specified in column 1 the new fee will be that shown in column 2. The percentage increase is shown in column 3:

  1. Existing fee	2. New fee	3. Percentage increase
  £6	£8.50	41.7%
  £11	£13.50	22.7%
  £17	£24.50	30.6%
  £21	£23.50	11.9%
  £26	£33.50	28.8%

• The exception is the fee payable on the renewal of a Group 2 licence, which is altered from £26 to £28.50, an increase of 9.6%.

2.  Regulation 5 and Schedule 2 amend the fees payable upon an application for a practical driving test where the test is to be conducted on or after 4th May 1999.

Practical driving test fees were last increased for tests booked on or after 1st April 1998.

The following tables show the new fees with the percentage change in brackets:

ORDINARY TESTS

Type of vehicle	Test commenced during normal hours	Tests commenced during evenings and weekends
Motor cycles and mopeds	£45 (15.4%)	£55 (5.8%)
Motor cars, tractors and minor categories	£36.75 (12.2%)	£46 (7%)
Cars with trailers, goods vehicles and passenger-carrying vehicles	£73.50 (no change)	£92 (no change)

EXTENDED TESTS

Type of vehicle	Test commenced during normal hours	Tests commenced during evenings and weekends
Motor cars	£73.50 (12.2%)	£92 (7%)
Motor cycles	£90 (15.4%)	£110 (5.8%)

3.  Regulation 3 increases the theory test fee, which has remained unchanged since July 1996, from £15 to £15.50 for tests booked on or after 6th April 1999.

4.  Regulation 6 enables the Secretary of State to serve notice on a person whom he believes to be suffering from specified types of relevant disability (namely certain visual defects and limb disabilities and the impairment of cognitive function) requiring that person to be examined by one of his own officers rather than a registered medical practitioner.