We have a camper van which sits on our drive for much of the year. When we do drive it in the UK we make one journey down to the Tunnel at Folkestone and another from Folkestone home!

I have no problem with taxing the vehicle for these 2 trips but the DVLA make it unnecessarily difficult for me to do so.

The current SORN expires in October and our train is in the wee small hours of the 1st July so I want to buy a 6 month disc effective on the 1st July.

I have tried to apply online but the website will only give me one starting on 1st June.

I phoned the DVLA and they said that the soonest I can apply is 2 working days before, which is the 28th at a Post Office or the 27th at a DVLA office. The website will only issue one when you are in the month itself, so that's no good to us.

I asked the woman why they don't say all this on the website, and her answer was that it's a pilot system and still has teething troubles! Aargh!

How far is it from your home to the tunnel?

Immaterial. You are not allowed to drive a vehicle on the continent without a valid tax disc. Similarly, your insurance may also be invalidated. Imagine a camper owner in France, it has no road tax, but makes a bee line for the runnel and arrives in Folkestone. If he 'comes to notice' here, his vehicle could be seized for not displaying a current disk. I saw this happen during a vehicle check on the A74 at Carlisle. The reasoning is it is a 'reciprocal' arrangement, you're vehicle is allowed free passage providing it meets the regulations pertaining to that country (plus any special local ones like toll-road billets and the like.

Spain too is doing the same with campervans blighting the shore in Tenerife, with many saying it will cost them too much to take the vehicle back to blighty for an MoT, but if parked on a public road, they get towed.

I am sure that nobody on these boards would suggest I should do something ILLEGAL like drive an untaxed vehicle....

I wouldn't risk invalidating my insurance, and in any case, with HM Revenue now married to Mr Excise it would not surprise me if the guys looking for contraband at the ports are not also doing a spot of tax disc checking in their spare time. Since the limits on tobacco and alcohol were raised it is wise not to give them any other excuse to spoil your day, such as an overladen or unroadworthy vehicle.

I phoned the DVLA and they said that the soonest I can apply is 2 working days before

I thought it was 14 days?

Only when renewing an existing disk. If there's no disk expiring, 2 days is the max allowed.

I may be missing something here, but I fail to see where there is a problem. If you are going to use the vehicle on the 1st. July what prevents you from getting a VED two days before at your PO? DVLA won't let you tax a vehicle that has a SORN fourteen days before the next month for obvious reasons.

There's nothing at all to stop me buying a tax disc at the Post Office. My beef is that the DVLA do not say anywhere on their website that this is what you have to do. I also don't see why they can't let you send off for one online but only send it out a few days before. If tax discs had a start date on them as well as an expiry you could order them for whatever period you liked. Or is that too logical?

Since when was the DVLA logical? They exist solely to make as much money as possible by fleecing the motorist in typical New Labour style

My mum worked for the Motor Tax department (as it was then called) in the 1950s. In those days the money they got was supposed to go towards maintaining the highways. Now it goes towards maintaining highwayMEN on nice fat government inflationproof salaries.