In Just Over A Month UK Tax Discs Will Be Gone For Good, And We Can't Wait

Carefully tearing out a fresh vehicle tax disc along the perforated line - a traditional and highly annoying aspect of motoring in the UK - will be banished to the history books in just over a month. In a not particularly well-publicised move late last year, the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) announced that the little discs, which have been affixed to the windscreens of UK cars since 1921, will be ditched in favour of an all-electronic system on 1 October 2014. After that date, you’ll be legally able to remove the damned thing from your windscreen and bin it.

We can’t wait to see the back of them. For starters, it’s a long overdue move, as tax dodgers have been kept in check using number plate recognition systems employed by roadside cameras and the police for years, rather than visual inspections. Then there’s the fact that it’s damn-near impossible to tear them out of the bits of paper you receive them in without ripping the disc, and that you need to faff about posting it back if you need a refund for whatever reason. Ditching the wretched discs also saves money: £10 million a year, according to estimates.

As it happens, in a situation which perfectly highlights just how laughable clinging to this ancient system is, it’s just been announced that the DVLA has run out of the tear-prone paper it normally uses, just shy of the abolishment of the discs. The organisation is printing discs on regular paper as a stop gap until the new rules come in.