Provisional Licence in N.Ireland

spuddy

A friend of mine has to drive to Donegal town next week from Dublin. He's on a 2nd provisional. He wants to cut through the North to save time on the journey, but I told him you can't drive outside the Republic on a provisional. Am I wrong or if I'm not, is this sort of thing policed?

ciasto

Well your right, he does not have a licence to drive outside of the country. So infact he doesn't have insurance once he crosses over too. But weather the Police will do something about it depends on the copper!

MrPudding

I really wouldn't recommend it. The idiotic policy of allowing people to drive unaccompanied on provisional licenses is not recognised in the North.

Of course to a certain extent, like the hordes of Northern drivers that swarm down here to commit traffic offences, you may get away with it. On the other hand, driving unacompanied is taken quite seriously so who knows what they may end up doing.

MrP

Borzoi

spuddy wrote:

A friend of mine has to drive to Donegal town next week from Dublin. He's on a 2nd provisional. He wants to cut through the North to save time on the journey, but I told him you can't drive outside the Republic on a provisional. Am I wrong or if I'm not, is this sort of thing policed?

From my previous experience with the then RUC, they will regard him as a learner driver, and as such he must be accompanied by a qualified driver. So don't let him do this on his own

Seth Brundle

Borzoi wrote:

From my previous experience with the then RUC, they will regard him as a learner driver, and as such he must be accompanied by a qualified driver. So don't let him do this on his own

Whilst on a provisional I was stopped numerous times by the RUC (routine stops!) who never batted an eyelid but I presume this was because they had other concerns when talking to a driver of a Southern registered car!

Borzoi

kbannon wrote:

Whilst on a provisional I was stopped numerous times by the RUC (routine stops!) who never batted an eyelid but I presume this was because they had other concerns when talking to a driver of a Southern registered car!

Maybe I (or father my friend who was driving) just got a guy on a bad day :mad:

TommyK

spuddy wrote:

A friend of mine has to drive to Donegal town next week from Dublin. He's on a 2nd provisional. He wants to cut through the North to save time on the journey, but I told him you can't drive outside the Republic on a provisional. Am I wrong or if I'm not, is this sort of thing policed?

Just look at the fron of the licence at the bottom . . . it says something like; "This is a licence issued to enable the holder to learn to drive and is not valid outside ROI" (or something to that effect).

Stark

It just says "outside Ireland" on my one, not "outside Republic of Ireland".

TommyK

Stark wrote:

It just says "outside Ireland" on my one, not "outside Republic of Ireland".

Whatever . . . I doubt the DoE means the entire island of Ireland - N.I. is part of the U.K., and road users there are licensed by the DVLA, not the DoE.

vector

The Irish Provisional "licence" permits the licence holder to drive in the Republic of Ireland, that is the Irish law.

If the licence holder wishes to drive in another country, regardless of what country that is, he is then subject to their law. Most countries only recognise full licences.

So really it is UK law that you should look at, do they recognise foreign privisional licences?

No need to look at Irish law, even if you find a loophold which allows the word "Ireland" to equal 32 counties, that doesn't matter.