I AM suffering from an acute dose of DVLA.

While not as serious or life threatening as MRSA, it is, however, extremely stress-inducing and incapacitating.

I became afflicted earlier in the week when I attempted to telephone the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to ask them whether they had received my daughter’s application for a provisional driving licence.

No matter what time of day I rang – and I telephoned their main 0300-prefixed number umpteen times – a message was relayed saying that there was a high number of calls at that time and to ring back later.

It gave information as to the busiest time, and advised ringing outside those hours. So I did, even getting up early especially to call, but always met with the same response.

The recordings also directed me to the organisation’s website.

Exasperated, I resorted to my laptop but after clicking about for ten minutes, I still couldn’t find an answer to my very simple question.

Surely, I thought, there must be another number. There was.

Advertised on a special ‘DVLA contact number’ website, were numbers prefixed by 0843 and 0844.

Not knowing or caring whether this was premium rate, I rang and almost fell off the sofa when someone answered.

A human being, a real person with a real voice. She answered my query in less than two minutes.

But why doesn’t that happen on the widely publicised 0300 number, which is probably far cheaper?

It is all designed to wear you down, to sap your energy. I hate to be beaten, but earlier this year, in a telephone stand-off with HMRC, I threw in the towel.

I spent so long waiting for someone to answer (I put it on speaker phone while I tiled the hall and re-plastered the living room ceiling), I gave up.

It came as no surprise to read that a Which? investigation found the average HMRC waiting time was 18 minutes, with one caller holding for 41 minutes.

What I hate most is that, after going through dozens of different choices, you are then asked: ‘Now if you would STILL like to speak to one of our advisors?’ But it’s not all bad. This week I had to ring Legal & General about an insurance policy.

Bracing myself for a lengthy wait, I was astounded when someone answered in less than 30 seconds. Full marks to them.