I just have to vent...

I have been in the UK since October 1st 2008.  I love love love living here and for the life of me never see us moving back to the States.

But OH MY GOODNESS does this country need to take a good long hard look at what they are charging for some things!

Sent off for my Provisional License yesterday and after getting of the £50 sticker shock of that, was floored at the Post Office when I was told it would be £5 for the Postal/Money Order!  HOW MUCH AGAIN?     Yes you saw that right, £5 for a Money Order.  *geesh*

Then just now I was looking up the costs for the Theory Test and it is £31!

Then for the Practical Driving test it is £63 during the weekdays and £75 for weekday evenings or weekend.  Well I don't want to have to take a day off from work for it so I guess it will be £75.

Seriously.

*whew*  Sorry most of you on here probably already know these costs but I had to just vent for a moment.  Now I feel a little bit better.   

I don't understand why they allow us to drive in the UK on our US License for the first 12 months only to then make us go thru all of this? If I was going to have an accident it would have happened in the first year.  Why not just swap the license?

I don't understand why they allow us to drive in the UK on our US License for the first 12 months only to then make us go thru all of this? If I was going to have an accident it would have happened in the first year.  Why not just swap the license?

Heh. I suspect you've just answered your own question. That's a powerful lot of money you're about to toss into the coffers. Think of it as a sort of...rural Alabama speed trap 

I don't understand why they allow us to drive in the UK on our US License for the first 12 months only to then make us go thru all of this? If I was going to have an accident it would have happened in the first year.  Why not just swap the license?

I think you answered your own question earlier.....the fees.

Heh. I suspect you've just answered your own question. That's a powerful lot of money you're about to toss into the coffers. Think of it as a sort of...rural Alabama speed trap 

Snort.  Yes, between the license and the visa fees, I feel I have certainly contributed to the UK's bottom line!

Yes you saw that right, £5 for a Money Order.  *geesh*

And as I discovered to my shock just recently, Royal Mail International now charges an £8  handling fee to collect customs/VAT due on packages:

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=54853.0

Then just now I was looking up the costs for the Theory Test and it is £31!

Then for the Practical Driving test it is £63 during the weekdays and £75 for weekday evenings or weekend.  Well I don't want to have to take a day off from work for it so I guess it will be £75.

Those recent increases were only a few months after the previous round of fee increases from the DVLA and DSA.  And would you believe that the DSA has now spent millions on purpose-built test centers for motorcyclists, all because of new laws demanding that motorcycle tests be carried out at 50km/h, thus meaning that officially they can't then be done on our 30 MPH roads in towns (because 50km/h is 31 MPH).  This is the level of petty bureaucracy which is driving the cost of everything sky high in Britain.   

I don't understand why they allow us to drive in the UK on our US License for the first 12 months only to then make us go thru all of this? If I was going to have an accident it would have happened in the first year.  Why not just swap the license?

Because it's an excuse to grab more money.  They say it's about safety of course, which is a daft argument to anyone who looks at it logically and considers the number of countries from which they do allow a straight license swap. 

I don't understand why they allow us to drive in the UK on our US License for the first 12 months only to then make us go thru all of this? If I was going to have an accident it would have happened in the first year.  Why not just swap the license?

If they required you to get a UK license sooner, wouldn't that mean they raised more fees in that they would raise them from folks only resident for a few months? I guess the year's grace is an attempt to trade off between the practicality of not imposing a heavy requirement on folks here a very short while and ensuring that people that really are in the UK relatively permanently go through the same requirements as anyone else.

Swapping sounds good in practice, but it would have to be reciprocal. I'm in CA right now and they give people just a month to get tested/licensed when moving here, even from another state. And the test here is a complete joke, quite frankly. Given the significantly different driving conditions and regulations in the UK, I really doubt passing a test in CA is good preparation for driving in the former.

Won't defend the fees though; they seem horribly high.

Yeah, £50 for a provisional licence is just crap and one of the reasons I don't have one yet!  Ugh.

and ensuring that people that really are in the UK relatively permanently go through the same requirements as anyone else.

But they don't all go through the same requirements as anyone else.   There are over 40 jurisdictions from which you can just swap your license for a British one, not counting the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, and the Isle of Man.  The list now includes places as diverse as Estonia, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, and even Korea!   Oh, and it includes all of Canada, albeit with the restriction that you'll be issued an automatic-only U.K. license.   It all has far more to do with politics than anything else.

Swapping sounds good in practice, but it would have to be reciprocal. I'm in CA right now and they give people just a month to get tested/licensed when moving here, even from another state.

They'd never be able to make it that short here under the present system.  It can take a month to get your provisional license issued, and anything up to three months to get a test appointment in some places, not to mention the additional paperwork delays now that the test comes in several different parts, each of which has to be documented before moving onto the next.

It really has become horrendously complex and long-winded compared to how it used to be.  Back in 1983 when I took my test, I'd applied for my provisional license so that I'd have it in time for my 17th birthday, and 32 days later I passed the test (a single appointment in those days).  A couple of weeks after that I had my license.   That would be impossible now because of the extra bureaucracy involved.   

And as I discovered to my shock just recently, Royal Mail International now charges an £8  handling fee to collect customs/VAT due on packages:

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=54853.0

And they charge £40 per person for mail forwarding to a new address for 6 months.  I think I'd be happy somewhere between that and free, as it is in the US.  Yeesh.  For my husband and I, it's £80!?  Now I understand why we would receive (non-important) mail for 10 different people at our old flat -- it's so expensive, I'm sure a lot of people don't bother. 

But OH MY GOODNESS does this country need to take a good long hard look at what they are charging for some things!

I chuckled a bit when I saw your post because I just had a long discussion with a friend about the expense of living in the States vs. UK. She thought it MUST be cheaper here because of the NHS. haha. My former life in the US was hands down cheaper than life here in Scotland (not that I don't love it here).

Everytime we think about doing something, there are all these added fees- get a tv, pay tv tax; get a car, pay road tax; get a place to live, pay council tax; not to mention VAT and the taxes on Petrol.

Sometimes I feel like my whole life revolves around paying the government for one thing or another, or saving movey to afford to pay the government.

But like you- I do love it despite the financial burden!

Heh, the nickel and diming on every front is what's increasingly driving ( ) us to look at moving back to the US, once we have dual citizenship established for everyone (only 2 out of 5 at the moment). Between the cost of driving, the visa fees and the income/sales taxes, I've just about had enough. God forbid we should buy a house here one day.....

Swapping sounds good in practice, but it would have to be reciprocal. I'm in CA right now and they give people just a month to get tested/licensed when moving here, even from another state. And the test here is a complete joke, quite frankly. Given the significantly different driving conditions and regulations in the UK, I really doubt passing a test in CA is good preparation for driving in the former.

Won't defend the fees though; they seem horribly high.

As far as I know (native Californian) you don't actually take a test to swap licenses there.  You're just required to register your address w/ the DMV and get a California one w/in a month of becoming a resident.  I *think* it's at least partially because they use DMV records to pull registration/etc from and they want you to make sure you get your car smogged as soon as possible.
Had several friends move there from other states and they just had to register, not take a test.

As far as I know (native Californian) you don't actually take a test to swap licenses there.  You're just required to register your address w/ the DMV and get a California one w/in a month of becoming a resident.  I *think* it's at least partially because they use DMV records to pull registration/etc from and they want you to make sure you get your car smogged as soon as possible.
Had several friends move there from other states and they just had to register, not take a test.

Everyone has to take the written test; those with a license from another state are excused the road test. If you don't have another US license you have to take both tests.

But they don't all go through the same requirements as anyone else.   There are over 40 jurisdictions from which you can just swap your license for a British one, not counting the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, and the Isle of Man.  The list now includes places as diverse as Estonia, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, and even Korea!   Oh, and it includes all of Canada, albeit with the restriction that you'll be issued an automatic-only U.K. license.   It all has far more to do with politics than anything else.

More likely, it has to do with who will agree to a reciprocal agreement?

More likely, it has to do with who will agree to a reciprocal agreement?

Yup. It's been talked over to death on these forums too. Since there's no reciprocal agreement, there's no swapping. And there probably won't be an agreement in the near future since you'd need one with every state in the U.S.