Rich_London

Hi all, moving over to Vancouver in a few days, got a quick question about driving licences. I've read the Wiki article but it doesn't mention if i need to take both plastic photo card and paper counterpart with me from the UK or just the plastic photo card. Can anyone shed any light on this? Will i be able to apply for my BC licence with just the photo card?

Thanks,

Rich

JB0591

Take both, they will retain the photo card element and give you the paper element. They will probably offer you a photo copy of both parts.

Rich_London

I was afraid someone was going to say that. As i said we're going on Friday and it's looking like i've lost the paper part

So you think it's 100% nessesary to have the paper, or just prudent?

JB0591

I only have experience of having both parts. Someone else might have experienced only having the card part.....I dont see why there would be a problem.

Are you forwarding your mail to you Canada? Hence if you apply for a replacement will it get to you? You have a fixed period you can drive on UK licence before you have to change...........if you are going to insure a car straight away then most insurance companies will ask for G licence details.

Rich_London

Yeah i'll have to get it sorted here and get it sent out your right... We're hiring a car from the airport for the first 3 weeks, do you think they'll be ok with me not having the paper counterpart? Sorry, i know you dont know all this stuff directly but perhaps someone else does?

james.mc

We hired a car in Vancouver on our Portuguese (EU) licences, there is no paper counterpart. The licences look pretty much the same as the UK.

I doubt if the hire car co will ask to see the paper counterpart as, in Europe, it's a weird (aka silly) UK thing anyway.

As long as the plastic card is valid I'm sure that's all they will want to see.

JB0591

Everytime I have hired a car in Canada (at least 5 times) I have only offered up my card part and they have never asked for the counter part.....mainly because they only have a card over here.

When I changed licence here, they knew there was two parts.

Alan2005

When the missus exchanged hers she didn't take the paper bit in and they didn't ask for it. This was in the ICBC driver licensing office in the Royal Centre downtown. I should add that she did this not long after they changed the rules so ymmv.