5 Things You Can Do With An International Driving Permit

An International Driving Permit (IDP) allows you to operate a motor vehicle in another country when accompanied by your valid Ontario driver’s license. The IDP – not a license to operate a motor vehicle on its own – is slightly larger than a standard passport and is essentially a multiple-language translation of your existing driver’s license.

Complete with photograph and vital statistics, such a document costs about $15 CDN, is valid for one year (renewable yearly) and there’s no test to get it.

With the U.S. and many European countries letting you drive with your provincial-government-issue licence, you might be tempted to dismiss an International Driving Permit as a needless precaution. But in the interest of being prepared and curbing unwanted travel surprises, the $15 you spend on one of these might be some of the best travel insurance you’ve even purchased.

With a Canadian-issued International Drivers Permit, you can:

1. Drive in countries that don’t honour non-local driving licenses: For example, U.S. and Canadian driver’s licences are accepted forms of ID to drive in many E.U. nations, but often not in countries with official languages written in characters other than the Roman alphabet. Such countries include China and many nations who use Arabic characters.

2. Rent a car in countries that don’t honour non-local driving licenses: Any country that requires an International Driving Permit for foreigners to drive also requires one for visitors to rent a vehicle.

3. Make the rental process easier in any country: Though the country you are renting in may not require such a document, an International Driving Permit shows that you’ve thought ahead and may put the person at the rental desk more at-ease than they would have been otherwise. In the interest of things going smoothly, it’s better to have an International Driving Permit in a foreign country and not need it than to go abroad without one and find out after-the-fact that it could have made your rental experience easier.

4. Use it as multi-lingual ID, even if you’re not driving: Translated into 10 languages, an International Driving Permit – along with your actual driver’s licence – can serve as ID in most countries, including many countries where it would otherwise be a pain for someone with no English to try and decipher. Again, you’re making it easier for well-intentioned gatekeepers to allow you to have a good time aboard.

5. Get through borders, checkpoints, and secure areas quicker and easier: Once again, having a piece of ID in an overseas official’s own language will likely endear you to him or her and speed up the process of getting you on your way. An International Driving Permit certainly isn’t an all-access, no-questions-asked pass, but it will make it easier for you to get from one place to another where you are the foreigner.

By the way, the more than 150 countries that accept International Driving Permits are the ones that signed the 1949 (Geneva) and/or 1968 (Vienna) Convention on Road Traffic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic#Contracting_Parties

Perhaps more immediately useful, the countries that did not sign either the 1949 or 1968 Conventions are Taiwan and North Korea.

In Canada, the CAA is the only organization authorized to issue International Driving Permits (Any other companies in Canada offering to do so are likely selling fakes.)

To apply for an International Driving Permit: http://www.caa.ca/travel/travel-permits-e.cfm

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