This story is a little confusing if you read into it . It says that there is a scheme – The Blue Lamp Trust – running in Basingstoke aimed at improving the driving standards of company car drivers. That’s not a bad thing at all.
But the story’s author says clearly that when he went to take an assessment, the trainer immediately discovered that his driving licence was out of date – it had, in fact, expired the previous May. The article says:
The lesson started badly. A quick inspection of my driving licence revealed it expired in May, something I had been blissfully unaware of.
But then it goes on to report how the author got on on his assessment. It makes no mention of any delay while the licence was updated. The author explains how he subsequently “passed” the assessment. It is clear that the assessment went ahead in spite of the driver having no valid driver’s licence.
It raises a few questions, not least the one about what law allows you to drive on the roads if you don’t have a licence. One that expired almost a year ago is not valid.
Another question is how can someone who hasn’t got one, and who wasn’t aware of the fact his had expired, pass an assessment which by definition would require the person being assessed to know about this and deal with it?
Naturally, that then raises questions about the administration of the scheme (registered as a charity, it appears).