On 21 Feb 2007 12:06:17 -0800, "PeterL" wrote:

On Feb 21, 12:01 pm, wrote:
I think I have seen this debated here before but not for a couple of
years.

Are there any countries where you MUST have an International Drivers
License?

Has anybody had a situation where they had to show it to somebody who
would not accept their home drivers license?

Last I recall of the debate was that Nobody had first hand experience
of actually needing one but several people had heard of somebody who
knew somebody that actually had to produce it.

The other conclusion from the debate seemed to be that they are
relatively cheap and easy to get so why wouldn't you just get one?
Even if you never need it. That same arguement could probably be made
for a dog license even if you don't have a dog.

No. I don't need an international DL if I don't drive outside my home
country. But if I do I would definitely get one.

You raise a question I had not thought of before. Maybe the answer is
obvious but do people resident in the EU get IDL's when they travel
outside of the EU? Especially to the Slovenian village mentioned
below where they may be acosted by some paramilitary police?


What if someone
replies to you and says that no from personal experience you don't
need one, and there you are driving in some backward village in
Slovenia and the para military police don't accept your DL and fines
you $1,000 EUR? Who are you going to complain to then?



I guess I wasn't planning to complain to anybody. THese same
paramilitary police sound like they are capable of not accepting my
IDL as well and still charging me 1000 Euros.




So, what is the current concensus and experience?

We will be driving in Germany, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland,
Hungary Croatia, Italy, Austria, France at least.

Gord





PS: I am not really concerned about the paramilitary police and the
1000 euro fine.

Gord