foreign driver licence

[terkan]

hi my friend currently is an international student at sfu and carrying her driver license from hong kong. We are wondering whether or not we need to get her driver licence translate by a translation service and have it stamp by one of those notary ppl or it's fine if the driver license already have english translation on it? reason we are asking this stupid question is the insurance guy said new regulation requires all foreign licence to be translated into english even if it has english on it already?? if so that's pretty stupid lol

[inv4zn]

Driving Without a Valid British Columbia Driver's Licence - Road Safety Rules and Consequences of Unsafe Driving - Driver Behaviour and Road Safety - Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles

Says students can drive with foreign license, but must carry student ID, and be registered full time.

Nothing about translations.

[dark0821]

My soon to be brother in law is rocking one from HK right now. He has been road checked, and the officer told him that the license is only valid for 90 days after he landed. Luckily he was still within the time frame. But the officer urged him to go thru ICBC and get a local license ASAP.

From what I understand, you would still have to take the knowledge test first, but there will not be the 1 yr wait in btw, and the person will be able to book a road test as soon as he passed the knowledge test. Lastly if passed on the road test, it will be straight to Class 5.

Hope this helps =P

[terkan]

If you are a full time student with a foreign licence u can drive with your licence as long as ur study permit and student id is valid. I just dunno about the translation part. Coz the icbc guy said its new regulation even if ur licence have both english and chinese on it

[sho_bc]

The International Driving Permit is the only recognized translation document of a foreign licence. ICBC's translation documents are internal translation documents only and do not qualify as appropriate translation for a foreign licence roadside (though many police officers mistakenly believe it is). The IDP is issued in the country of origin and is valid for 1 year from the date of issue.

The reason for having the IDP, despite possibly having English on the licence itself already, is that it is a document that confirms the validity of a licence and translates the class of the licence/describes what the licensee is allowed to drive.

Information on the IDP courtesy of Wikipedia including issuing countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Driving_Permit

[zulutango]

You are exempt if you attend...

(b) by a person for the period that the person is registered as a full time student at and attends any of the following educational institutions:

(i) a university, as defined in the University Act;

(ii) an institution, as defined in the College and Institute Act;

(iii) [Repealed 2004-33-21.]

(iv) the University of Northern British Columbia;

(v) [Repealed 2002-35-9.]

(v.1) the Thompson Rivers University;

(vi) Royal Roads University;

(vii) [Repealed 2003-48-20.]

(viii) any other educational institution in the Province that is authorized under an enactment to grant degrees or is designated under section 3 (1) (a) of the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act,


You must carry your home country DL with you...you may also have a translation in the form Sho said. If you get stopped & you do not produce your home DL then you get a VT for not having a DL, not a Vt for failing to produce it. Get a no DL VT that way and you could find your car being hooked for driving with no DL as you will be assigned a BC identification number that is now in the data base. Just play by the rules & things are a lot easier.