Taiwan driver’s licences will no longer be able to be swapped for Australian driver’s licences.
Will this have an impact for swaping Australian driver’s licences for Taiwanese licences?
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You can’t blame them, really.
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Looks like it doesn’t include visitors on an international license, which is where Austria made the wise move
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Did Austria ban visitors?
Also, doesn’t include other temporary visa holders like, temporary workers, students etc etc.
Yes 100%. Taiwan does it on a reciprocal basis. I.e. you accept mine and I’ll accept yours.
Honestly. This is a good thing. Last thing we need is more dangerous foreign drivers.
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There was a bit of abuse of that list of experienced drivers, for intsance China wasn’t on that list, but chinese could get Hong Kong drivers licences (without any additional testing) wait one year then swap it for an Australian driver’s licence. I’d imagine that was considered in reaching this decision.
Nah not really. They were just getting rid of that category as part of tightening driver training. The remaining countries have a graduated training scheme. I.e. learners to provisional to open.
Countries like Taiwan have parking lot training instead… where you learn how to do a simple obstacle course and park your car a couple of times before driving 2 minutes around the block on the actual road… (The last part was recently added in to fool the Germans and Poms to accept Taiwan license transfers.)
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Under that logic they wouldn’t accept every state from the US… some states don’t have that or their laws and programs can vary wildly.
Take for example Arizona
Learners 15 and 6 months
Restricted 16
Full licence 16 and 6 months
That is a 1 year timeline from learners to full licence. Nothing like Australia and much younger at full licence
But it is still a graduated system so it ticks that box
That’s different. Australia still lets tourist drive temporarily for 3 months. But then after that, they need to convert it.
I had a full licence at 17 in Oz
This is honestly so stupid. If you’ve lived in other countries having a reciprocal system is amazing. I can convert mine for a UK and Italy license and it saves me so much time.
Like give me a break, if someone’s been driving for years making them do the process over again is just bureaucratic red tape. Especially in places like the UK where it takes months to book a theory test and more months to book a driving test.
Now their citizens in these places will also have to be burdened with this nonsense.
- Bulgaria
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Republic of Cyprus
- South Korea
- Republic of Serbia
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Taiwan
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"Give me a break”? No, give pedestrians a break from drivers who think years behind the wheel excuses dangerous habits. The ones you’re defending are often the same people blowing through red lights, cutting off pedestrians, and treating speed limits like suggestions.
Let’s not pretend all driving experience is equal. Countries like Bulgaria, South Korea, Taiwan, and others on that list are infamous for loose testing and reckless road culture. Bringing those standards into Australia without checks is a recipe for disaster. Re-testing isn’t red tape, it’s damage control.
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Australia varies by states too…
For example P platers in NSW are speed limited. In VIC they aren’t.
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This seems like a good move, although im not sure about the ins and outs of it.
If its happening because a Taiwanese driving license isn’t really considered qualified to drive in Australian traffic I’m on board and hope more countries do it.
It might finally get the message through to the thick c**ts in MOTC that the standard of driving here is brutal.
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I had mine at 18… but that isn’t possible these days. Believe the earliest now is 20.
I learnt it the hard way last Christmas. Had my Italian licence renewed here at the consulate, but it is only valid in Italy, not really in the EU due to… Italian usual silliness. Found a way to get a proper new Italian licence, but took a while to process, so they gave me a “substitute” which was a (badly printed) A4 paper in Italian only.
So went to Austria and needed to rent a car to go from Vienna to Graz, went to the Avis where I booked the car, went with all my papers but showed my TW licence with international driving permit. The guy said “sorry we don’t accept it”. They guy was very professional and kind, explained to me the situation, I showed all my other papers, when I showed my Italian “licence” he stopped for a second and then said once I already gave up and asked for a refund “it’s fine, just don’t speed Sir please, Merry Christmas” and he gave me the keys.
I kinda cried since I had to go pick my wife up in Graz. But don’t blame Austria at all, I wouldn’t accept any TW driver tbf haha/
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