International Driving Permits!

One of the side effects of the UK deciding to leave the EU, the so called "Brexit", means that one of the many hassles is that our UK driving licences won't be accepted to drive in the remaining 27 EU countries.

Oddly, my UK driving licence is accepted in the US, a country some 3000 miles away from Europe.  On all my trips to the US, to NY, Arizona and Florida, my photo card licence has been accepted at all the different hire car reservations desks.  But to drive/ride in the EU from January 1st 2020 we had to purchase an International Driving Permit.

And so I did.

As someone that voted "remain" in the referendum on the UK remaining or leaving the EU back in 2016, even I think that this is another example of the pettiness of the EU.  The EU licence directives have been enshrined in UK law.

We also have the one of the lowest casualty rates for roads in Europe. So the penalty can't be that we are bad drivers and so putting a barrier to our drivers isn't justified.

The graph above is taken from an official EU document and published on the internet for all to see.

The IDP is also based on three International Conventions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Driving_Permit - and because of this as a UK licence holder I have to have two IDP's to drive in the EU.  

If I drive through France to get to Spain I need two. Both countries signed up to different conventions! Not only that, they have differing life-spans depending on which one you require!

Sadly, 2020, the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, means that both the IDP's I bought to use this year have expired now! They went through the shredder this morning.

Luckily, taking your UK driving licence, plus a passport style photo,  to a post office means that for a fee you can get one. It's relatively easy but it is totally unnecessary and another layer of petty bureaucracy. https://www.postoffice.co.uk/identity/international-driving-permit

Wouldn't it just be simpler for the UK and EU to agree to carry on as we have for 40 years or whatever term we have been tied together?