| It can get worse than that.
I got a producer for something quite trivial a couple of days after I had sent my license to Swansea for a change of address.
Hmmmmm..... 5 days to produce my license and up to 3 weeks to get my license back after it had ground it's way through the system.
I phoned Swansea and asked them whether they could just return it unprocessed or fast track it somehow - you could hear them s******ing - but they said this was not an uncommon thing to happen and that they would issue me with a 'certificate of entitlement to drive' which the police would be happy with. Sure enough the certificate turned up in the post - on the last day I had to produce my documents.
Took it down the local nick along with my other documents and the local plod took one look at the said 'certificate' and sneered "but that's not a license is it sir..." in the way that only some people can call you 'sir' and make it sound as if you're actually akin to something unpleasant stuck on their shoe. Despite assurances from the DVLA that their certificate was valid the local nick proceeded to charge me for failure to produce my license. I kicked up a fuss and the desk sergeant got involved, then someone higher up and so on until I had about 5 layers of heirarchy standing behind the desk arguing the toss. Every single one of them was behind their mates pedantry and wouldn't budge.
They didn't back down until I got a solicitor involved, but it cost me an hour of solicitors time  |