Don’t know what you all think, but I found this to be quite a twist on the norm here in regards to getting a driver’s license in Taiwan.
My father recently moved back to Taiwan for two years. He got an international license before he came which was good for one year. The licensing office told him that it would only be honoured in Taiwan for three months so he decided to get Taiwan license. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he would be jumping through a lot of hoops and taking a road test he really didn’t want to take. So…
He took his old Taiwan license to the licensing office here in Hualien and asked if he could renew it. This license is dated from 1971 - much more than recently expired! The women at the office looked it over and informed him that as it was issued in Taipei he would have to go there to renew it. As you are aware, one office never knows what the rules are in another office and I really didn’t think this would be possible but he decided to give it a shot.
This week he went to Taipei with his old license and presented it to the appropriate folk there. They had never seen a license that looked like his and in fact, had no records in their computers either ( no wonder!) and were rather stunned to have a foreigner present this paper anyway. Not knowing what to do they called the supervisor to come take a look. The supervisor had a good long look at it and then went to the back somewhere and did a manual search of all hard copy for the original paperwork. No luck with finding my dads car license. He did though, find the hard copy for his old motorcycle license from even earlier. Turned out that my father had transferred his license to Hsinchu so that is where the paperwork had gone. Based on the old motorcycle license the supervisor decided to renew both drivers licenses. No test, just a chop here and there and he was done. Not knowing exactly how to date the licenses they now have two issue dates : The car license, 2004 and the motorcycle,1971.
I can’t believe that with all the trouble people seem to have just getting licenses here as foreigners, he simply walked in and walked out in no time with everything in order - all with an expired license from 1971!
Yesterday my father went out and bought a ten year old 150cc easyrider. At seventy, he had thought his motorcycling days were long over… the temptation was too great, I guess. His only regret at this point? His last bike was a 950cc Goldwing. Go Dad! :bravo:
