Planning to go off on a
wonderful driving holiday or business trip to Europe this year…planning
to hit the highways and byways of Europe…planning to cruise over some of the world’s
most beautiful and challenging mountain passes…well then…start planning now and
get your International Driving Permits-IDP sorted out soonest.
I got my International Driving Permit
last week. The IDP is a legal entity unlike the heavily advertised
‘International Driving Licence’ which according to the RAC and the Department
for Transport has no legal validity at all.
The bottom line is…if you are proposing to drive
in Europe ( and beyond ) after March 29th and the British
Government crashes out of the European Union without a Brexit deal there is NO
guarantee that your existing UK issued driving licence on its own will be valid
in Europe and beyond.
To be sure of complying with what
are sure to be draconian European driving laws then pop down to your local CROWN
Post Office with your passport, current UK Driving License-both parts, a
passport photograph for each licence required and a means of paying £5.50 for
each license. Your small local post office won’t be able to do this for you.
When I turned up I had to wait for
10 minutes as only two member of staff had been trained up to issue the IDP and
they were both at lunch. It takes about 10 minutes for each IDP to be issued as
all your details have to be written in laboriously by legible hand onto a card
document slightly larger than a standard passport. You get lots of stamps which
makes it all very official looking and most importantly each IDP is published
in several European languages…enough even to appease a French ‘Flic‘
who wants to bring his numbers up at the end of a shift !!
Using farmers dirt tracks to cross
the Somme Battlefields in northern France
As far as I could work out, with the
help of a wonderful Post Office clerk in Dunmow, Essex there are three
versions of the IDP, all different and all valid for different periods of
time…no one said this was going to be easy !
I opted for the 1949 validated
version which allows me to drive in Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Iceland…AND
the 1968 validated version which covers all EU countries plus Norway and
Switzerland…there is another version dated from 1926 which allows you to drive
in Lichtenstein. Now, just to confuse…it is possible that if the UK crashes out
of Europe on the 29th of March 2019…then either none of the above will
count….or, that the 1949 version will not count and only the 1968 will be of
use. When the Prime Minister knows I’m sure she will tell us !!
Getting a Brexit deal may help to
resolve all the above but i’m planning a belt and braces approach here by
getting sorted now !
Interesting point here is that
although the Government refuses to acknowledge that pre Brexit stockpiling
is taking place throughout the land most Crown Post Offices have been issued
with thousands of blank International Driving Permits to issue in the coming
weeks…I was told ‘We are expecting a bit of a rush on in March’…don’t
get caught out, go get it sorted now !!…and this will probably apply even if
you are hiring a car in Europe rather than taking your own.
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