Foreign driver's licence

pdelnegro

About me:
I'm French but I grow up in Brazil, so I have a Brazilian Driver's License.

About my situation:
According to Inis website, my current license is valid for the period of a year after I entered Ireland as long as it is valid. So I can drive here LEGALLY. But after that I have to take an Irish License, which is understandable.

Now, for me to get the Irish license is almost the same process as for anyone except that I can skip the 6 months waiting time between the DTT and the driving test, because I have a license for over 5 years (15 years now).
What I don't get is why I have to do the lessons. If the government considers me apt to drive for a whole year without any worries, and sees me as fit to skip the 6 month period, why do I need to do the classes that won't teach me anything new?

Can anyone either show me a way out of the classes? Or at least help me calm down explaining me why things are this way, because I don't understand.

Tow

Changes are you will fail the driving test without lessons, probably 95%+ if you don't even study the rules of the road.

It is not a matter of being able to drive, but driving correctly according to 'the rules'. Before the current system there were people who were driving 10, 20 30, 40+ years who would sit the test every couple of years for a new 'provisional' licence and fail it.

cantdecide

pdelnegro wrote: »

Can anyone either show me a way out of the classes? Or at least help me calm down explaining me why things are this way, because I don't understand.

I can confirm that there is no way around this. It would be the same if your Irish licence had expired 10 years ago (eg if you'd emigrated) and you wanted to resume driving here.

I just advise you to look at the 1yr grace period as the concession it is and just embrace the process. There are plenty of people driving in Ireland on foreign licences that wouldn't have a tiny chance of passing an EU driving test and attaining an EU driving licence (which is a prized document internationally). I know it's painful after 15 years of driving but the instructor has a curriculum they must deliver.

dennyk

Yep, just gotta grin and bear it and follow the process. I will say that while 12 full hours was rather excessive, the lessons did help me correct some of those bad/lazy driving habits we all pick up over the years, and helped me learn the test routes backwards and forwards, including the little tricky bits every route has, which helped a lot come test day.

I will say you need to get your lessons done and get registered for your test ASAP; the way things are trending with the waiting times, it won't be long before parents will have to be registering their kids for their test while they're still in the womb if the kids are to have any hope of getting a license before they hit middle age.

Isambard

can you swap the Brazilian license for a French one and then swap that for an Irish one? I think it's a straight swap for an EU license.

dennyk

No, if you obtained another EU country's license by exchanging a foreign license that Ireland doesn't recognize for exchanges, then you cannot exchange that license for an Irish license. However, if you have a French license, you can drive in Ireland on that license for as long as it is valid. Your difficulty would be renewing the French license if you are no longer resident in France (or obtaining it in the first place if you aren't actually living in France, as you need to be resident there in order to obtain a French license).

Isambard

how would they know?

dennyk

The French license would have a code 70 on it that indicates via the supplemental code the country of the holder's exchanged license. If it's not a country that Ireland will accept for an exchange, then they won't exchange the French license either. Even if the code somehow got left off in error, the NDLS might still discover that information when they validate the license with the French licensing authority, I'd guess, although that depends on just how much digging they do for validation purposes.