Photo driving licences came out about 14 years ago. By law, you MUST renew the photo every 10 years. Apparently, they don't send out reminders. ( ) Failing to update your photograph carries a £1,000 fine, but according to Sainsbury's insurance over 40% of drivers don't have a clue.

Anyone put their hands up?

Did mine last year.

Received a reminder and completed the process with zero hassle.

I fell foul of this last year, only when I went to try and hire a car was it brought to my attention. It seems a bit hit and miss as to wether people get reminders.

I had mine registered to my old address for 6 years, so I've got until 2016 to use this one

There is a clue on the photo licence

Right next to your mugshot there are valid from and to dates.

Aye, daft lad, and how often do you look at that, then? My licence lives in a tin box in the spare room though and never sees the light of day. If I had seen that when I got it (and probably I will have done) then I will have assumed I would have got a reminder in a decade. and still put it in the tin box. I would assume that somewhere between 0% - 2% of the population would put a reminder in their perennial diary system just in case.

Seems to me a recipe for millions not renewing it and that seems to be borne out by Sainsbury's figures. But if you are more anal in such matters than everyone else then good for you

So if you've had a licence more than 14 years you must only be required to have a photo licence when obliged to change it for some reason. As far as I'm aware paper licences are still legal.

Indeed, very few do (including me, I got lucky with a reminder last year).
But the fact that the licence bears an expiry date makes it one's own responsibility, so we can't claim it's not our fault for not renewing.

Yes we can, as it is obviously not reasonable to expect millions of people all to diary forward something 10 years in the future, the majority of whom will never use or ever have used any sort of reminder or diary system.

The driving licence is the "real" licence. The "photo ID" licence is an additional requirement, but does not replace, and cannot be used "instead of" the paper licence.