My passport and driving licence sat on the counter but the girl stared back at me, repeating her demand.
‘I need your DVLA check code,’ she said. I told her I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was on about. ‘I need your DVLA check code,’ she said again, doing her best ‘computer says no’ stare.
The Sixt rental office was in the atrium of the Hilton Hotel Gatwick, which for some reason had been heated to something like sauna temperature. I had walked what felt like a mile, pulling my wheelie suitcase, because Sixt wasn’t in the main car-hire area near the terminal exit, and hadn’t warned me very enthusiastically either, during the booking process, that it was going to be the other side of the multi-storey car park, down a walkway tunnel, and all the way to the far side of the hothouse atrium of the Hilton.
When I finally found the office, there were two staff members standing outside. ‘Are you going to come in and serve me?’ I asked them as they continued to stand outside chatting after I walked through the door to find the office empty. They both then came inside, finding a man already sitting waiting.
The girl said very pointedly that she would serve me. She was nice, but she was very, very nice, in that way people have when they want to put you in your place for being impertinent.
I was sweating from the walking and the sauna-like heat as she kept saying: ‘I need your DVLA check code.’
‘Listen to me,’ I said, after she had said it so many times I felt like I was going to faint from the sweating and the confusion. ‘It doesn’t matter how many times you say those words, I do not know what they mean.’
She then explained that when I booked I was told – and she was right, I found out later when I re-read a booking email – that I would need this DVLA check code, which you get online and gives you a kind of rating, like a credit rating only for driving, based on any points you may have on your licence and whether you’ve been convicted of motoring offences.
She said if I didn’t have it, we could do it now. ‘You just need your national insurance number,’ she said.
‘You do realise I don’t want a job here?’ I said, my head pounding. I was leaning on the counter for support. ‘I don’t want to work for Sixt, I just want to hire a car for four days, while I’m visiting friends in Surrey.’ About this time I realised that the man at the counter next to me, who started his collection at the same time, was being given the keys to his car.
‘Hang on,’ I said, pointing to him, ‘has this gentleman had to do the DVLA check code?’
‘No, he has an American passport,’ said the girl, and she said something to the effect of asking me not to bother the customer being served next to me, which was fair enough.
‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ I said, ‘but you do realise this is mental, don’t you? I live in Ireland now, but I’m a British citizen and I’ve driven here all my life. You’re checking me but you’re not checking foreign visitors who are driving on the other side of the road to what they’re used to… Ah! Because you can’t, can you? Of course not. You can’t check this man’s driving record in America. You’re only able to check mine here.’
I wondered vaguely whether this check enabled them to say, oh, points on your licence, the price is higher. My licence is clean as it happens, but that’s by the by. I also later found out that this DVLA check is valid for 21 days only, so every time you hire a car you have to do one. It’s monstrous.
The girl and I argued back and forth, and she kept asking me not to involve the other customer. But I did involve him. I kept looking over at him having the location of his car explained, and I kept saying: ‘This isn’t fair.’
And in the end, this American chap turned to me and said: ‘You’re right.’ And then he looked at the girl serving me and said: ‘She’s right. She should not have to do that.’
Britain is making a fool of itself increasingly. That man will go back to America and he will tell people he had this experience at London Gatwick. He will say something like: ‘Do you know the UK requires extra background checks on their own citizens to hire a car in the UK, while foreign drivers only need a passport and driver’s licence? Crazy, huh?’
So I looked at this girl and I said: ‘Please refund me what I paid online and cancel my booking.’
I flounced off to the main car hire hub, walked up to Hertz and asked for a car, but without a booking they didn’t have one. I walked to the next counter but before I could complete the question, the man said: ‘We’re the same company.’
I walked from one to another, being refused, until a very nice chap at Europcar did his best to find me a car but the price was a bit high for me. ‘Out of interest,’ I said, ‘if I had taken it, would you have required a DVLA check?’ He said he would. They all have to do these checks on UK citizens.
Off I trawled, pulling my wheelie case, all the way back to where I first came out of the terminal and up to the taxi rank, as the emails from Sixt began to pour in…
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