Ok, I did a search and couldn’t turn up much. First off though, I have a South African drivers licence for all sizes of motorcycle.
Is there any way to just get it transferred or do I have to get the licence from scratch? All I’m really interested in is the scooter licence.
Has anyone gotten their scooter licence in Kaohsiung? Where do I go, how hard was it, etc?
Second question: My scooter is one of those handed down from a foreigner to a foreigner. We kind of got it when a friend had to leave in an emergency and he asked us to buy it off him and sell it. Since it is pretty much a p.o.s. it’s not worth selling and his boss who was supposed to send us the papers for it has fobbed it off saying he never recieved them.
How do I register this damned thing and if your scooter isn’t legal, can you still do your test on it?
When I did the test about 6 years ago for my bike they were truely hellish to deal with (Nanzi test station). The one in Fengshan might be better, but I am not sure.
At that time they did not have an English test. When I finally passed the written after 5 or 6 goes and of course passed the absurdly easily road test they took ages to hand me my license. Other people were getting their’s handed out fairly quickly. I asked them what the problem was. They said we can not fit your name on the license. They eventually settled on using my Chinese name when I gave them one. I asked them didn’t they have this problem before, given my name is not especially long for a foreigner. They said no. I said why not, were no other foreigners trying to do the test. Their response. Yes, but they didn’t pass!!!
Anyway I guess maybe now the number of foreigners in South Taiwan is massive compared with 5 or 6 years ago and when I went and did my license test for a car it was much easier since they had English. Still expect the people behind the desks there to be COMPLETELY obnoxious though. When I passed my car test I had thanks to help from Richard Hartzell allready via an administrative appeal obtained a 6 year bike license. They tried to take my 6 year license away and give me one for the length of my ARC for both my car and bike licenses. It took a lot of rather agressive arguing to get to keep my 6 year license and get one for the bike. I very much doubt you could get it without speaking at least fairly good Chinese or having a Chinese translator.
Maybe it has all changed since… but I doubt it.
[quote=“Plastic Rat”]Ok, I did a search and couldn’t turn up much. First off though, I have a South African drivers licence for all sizes of motorcycle.
Is there any way to just get it transferred…[/quote]Probably not. The African page of the site that lots of people use to check for reciprocity/license exchange agreements is this;
tcmvd.gov.tw/d2k/english/AFRICA.htm
The info on South Africa is unclear. You get a check saying you can use a South African IDP, but in the column for regular home country license exchange there is a triangle. The check sign means yes, the cross means no, but I can’t find anywhere on that site that says what a triangle means!
Most countries aren’t eligible for this kind of license exchange, so it’s unlikely that South Africa is. But you might as well ask at the DMV on the offchance.
[quote=“Plastic Rat”]How do I register this damned thing and if your scooter isn’t legal, can you still do your test on it?[/quote]You can’t register it, unfortunately. And I’m not sure but I seem to remember that you have to show the blue registration card when you take the test.
But if I remember correctly, you can use a vehicle registered in someone else’s name, provided you show the blue card. I’m not certain though. You’ll need to check at the DMV. Let us know when you find out for sure!
[quote=“naguoning”]…from Richard Hartzell allready via an administrative appeal obtained a 6 year bike license.[/quote]It’s no longer possible to get a 6 year license based on an administrative appeal. Richard wrote about the change in the law last year.
On the plus side, the charge for license renewal seems to have been dropped.