A weird situation reg. drivers license
 

Hi all

I live in Vietnam, and arrive there 8 years ago without a drivers license. I have since then grown terrible fond of riding motorcycles (without a license, notch, notch, say no more) and would love to go on longer trips abroad, but find myself in a bit of a jam getting a license.

What I would like is an internatiotional license, but they don't issue those in Vietnam. I then wanted to take a 'real' license back in my homecountry, Denmark, but it seems you can't get a license in the EU without having a permanent address there, and being registered with tax, etc.

Do anyone of you know if there's a place in Europe, where I can go and get a proper license, that I then can convert into an international?

Thanks in advance! :)

/Thomas

Hi Thomas..

Please. anyone should jump in if I'm wrong..

But to my knowledge there really isn't any such thing as a international drivers license. ( at least here ), what is issued is just a translation of your own license.

Most countries allow tourists to drive/ride in their countries with their foreign licenses for a limited amount of time ( but check the particulars ). If you stay over that amount of time, then you have to get a local license to continue to drive.

That brings us to the 2nd part of your question.. I'm afraid I cannot help you there.. Hope someone else can pipe in...

Denmark does issue an international drivers licens if you have the national. But the international has to be reissued every year.

You should check that Vietnam accepts the international license, which I'm not so sure they do.

Do a lot of search on this forum and on the Lonely Planets forum for getting a Vietnamese license which I think is possible, but I'm not sure.

Vietnam will not recognise an International licence(available in Australia)You must have a Vietnamese licence, do the test or buy(google it)If you have been riding there for 8 years and got away with it you are lucky. We were stopped by the cops in January last,600,000VND backhander and we were told if we had not had licence, bike papers and insurance the bike would have been impounded. Don't think the cops were joking as they had half a truck load already.:frown:
My Viet licence has to be renewed annually tho some are 5 years or lifetime-----its Vietnam:confused1:

I think we have to be quite careful in this discussion to discriminate between an 'international licence' - whatever the heck that is - and an 'International Driving Permit (IDP)'.

An IDP is, essentially, a multilingual translation of a full driver licence issued by a country. By itself it confers no privileges or qualifications, it merely provides a translation of certain key bits of information that appear on your full driver licence. Both the underlying (original, full, home country) driver licence and the IDP need to be presented at the same time. The IDP by itself is nothing.

A full description of the IDP, including details about the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic that established the IDP and governs how it is issued, can be found on Wikipedia at International Driving Permit. I haven't read the actual document to see what countries have ratified that Convention, but it appears from the information provided at Wikipedia that Vietnam has ratified the Convention. Hence, an IDP accompanied by the original underlying licence should be accepted in Vietnam. Whether the local traffic cops know that or not is another question.

So, before further confusion develops, would the original posters (above) clarify if they are speaking about an IDP or not?

Michael

Pan is right - there is in fact two different IDP s availiable in this country . They are valid for one year .They run alongside / supplement the national driving licence and are no good on their own . Each one covers seperate countries . Usually obtained via the Rac / AA / Post Office etc .
No such thing as an International licence im afraid .

IDP commonly called IDL in OZ.doh Even mentioned as such by the motoring associations that provide the form.The one I had a few years back had Vietnam as a listed country. It was of no interest to some traffic cops and too confusing for others.The Vietnam licence helps to reduce the frequency of donations to the police welfare fund.
Macca