Here's a new twist to the 'fun' that is wading through the DVLA's processes. Thankfully, more self-inflicted angst than any real hassle. (Sorry if it's a bit long.)
I'm fortunate in that I still had a valid Australian driving licence, so did not have to go through the ordeal of being tested over here, since I could exchange it. But they still had to send my US passport away, even though I went in person to the Wimbledon DVLA, which is one of the premium checking locations.
Apparently, although they had no problem identifying me using my (older, but still valid) Australian passport, the fact that my Entry Clearance was stamped in the US one meant that they had to send that off to Swansea regardless of the fact that the stamp would have been exactly the same had it been put in the Australian passport, which they could see and verify then and there.
(I could have kicked myself. Back before my move, the consular staff in Chicago had even asked me which passport I wanted to use. Stupidly, I had them use the US one because it was newer and had more empty pages! If only I'd known..
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The old licence had been carefully renewed over the years when necessary during visits back. Ironically, although I originally passed the test in Australia, I'd hardly ever driven there because I never owned a car there - public transport was enough. Most of my driving experience was subsequently in the US (where I did have to take the practical test again, but it involved nothing more than driving around one very large block and changing lanes a couple of times. One of those 'at their discretion' situations I guess, since they saw I was already licensed overseas.)
But anyway, the good news is that it only took 8 days to get the passport back. January must be a good time of year to do these things?! The new licence itself arrived two days after that, so I haven't had to go without being able to drive for long. (I would have done it in December but that's when I discovered they'd still need to send the passport away, and I needed it to travel over the holidays).
I was still really worried that there would be a glitch of some kind, due to the passport and old licence being from different countries. Sad to say, it wouldn't have been a total shock if the DVLA had some needlesslly awkward rule about the licence having to match the most recent country of residence prior to the UK!
Also I don't recall the guy at the DVLA actually signing the photo when I gave it to him. I'd asked him (generally about the requirement of signing), and he said something that I didn't quite catch, followed by something like "and anyway, that requirement was recently scrapped"!
As a result I've been worrying the whole time that he'd made a mistake and everything would need to be resubmitted. Perhaps the signature isn't needed when the identity is verified at premium locations now? I can't find anything online about the requirement changing. Who knows.. In any case, it ended up being okay.
The paper counterpart is certainly confusing. I saw the bit that says "Provisional Entitlements" on it and thought they'd sent me a provisional licence by mistake. Took me awhile to realize that the codes in that section are just for certain additional types of vehicles that the licence holder is entitled to now learn.
