mlevene

Hi all,

We have lived in Georgia for the last year. Both on non-immigrant H visas. My wife was today stopped for failing to lock her wheels at a stop sign. The officer gave her 2 tickets:-

1) Failing to stop at a stop sign

2) Driving without Georgia License

Page 5/6 of the Drivers License Manual states:-

A GA driver’s license is required for New Residents who have lived in GA for more than 30 days

A GA driver’s license is NOT required for :-

A nonresident of the state of Gerogia OR a non-immigrant of the United States, who is at least 16 years of age and who is in immediate possession of a valid driving permit issued in the home state or country of that person’s residence.

Clearly we are resident but also she is (like me) a non-immgrant of the US with valid UK license for our UK residence which we still own.

Whats the consensus on the license. Do resident non-immigrants require a license???? By definition non-immigrant signals an intention to return home one day and therefore surely better to keep the UK license?

(I took my license to obtain cheaper insurance, but had 2 copies!!)


Best wishes, Michael

adeshell

Sounds like you have a case. They make you surrender your previous licence if you have a UK licence and are getting a state licence, but thats if you're a permenent residence. I would go to court to challenge that. Think you're guity with the stop thing though. They're pretty strict on that in GA.

Chopper-Chris

I agree on the stopping thing...Guilty as charged..don't even think of trying to fight it or they will lose interest in your ligitimate arguement against the license ticket...

the key here is the following..."a non-immigrant of the United States, who is at least 16 years of age and who is in immediate possession of a valid driving permit issued in the home state or country of that person’s residence" You are non-immigrant therefore you qualify to drive on a UK license, but you can't either expect the cop to know that (unless your wife was carrying her passport at the time) and even if she was, he probably wouldn't know the difference between non-immigrant and immigrant anyway, sounds like he was having a bad day and your wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry, but he is probably expecting to see you in court over that one!

Anyway, I do have to take issue with the license surrender comment, I have both NY and NJ licenses and have never been asked to surrender my UK license on gettign either of them, I would never however show a cop my UK license if I was stopped, they know for a fact that you have a US license based on your license plate, so if you show them a UK license, they'll get pissed off and be sure to give you a ticket for something...anything.!

NC Penguin

If you've copied and pasted directly from the Drivers Handbook for GA, I'm afraid it looks correct that your wife was given a ticket for not having a GA licence.

The key word is "or" . You and your wife are most likely resident in the state of GA based on what you wrote earlier in the post. So, you should've gotten GA licences (and retained your UK licences).

Do you have an H1-B and your wife an H-4? If that's the case, that is a dual intent visa which means you could get a Green Card so someone could say that you have have an immigrant visa too.

Whether or not you and your wife are non-immigrants is irrelevant. There were two possible criteria for not needing to get a GA licence and you fell foul of the first one (you are both resident).

Non-one's saying you have to surrender your UK driving licence. The US has no jurisidiction to confiscate your UK licence.

I'm not a lawyer but this is my interpretation of your initial post.

mlevene

Yes I have an H1-B and my wife a H4. Loss of UK driving license is not really an issue, as duplicates are easy to obtain and really only required for UK visits (makes life easier).

Think the driving manual is vague and my initial interpretation is a GA license is not required if you are either non- resident or if you are non-immigrant which is the definitive classification of the Visa.

As the wording uses "or" we satisfy the later criteria, that said there's seem to be a very mixed consensus. Note the wording was typed from the manual.

Thank you all for your valued comments. I will let you all know the outcome! If anyone has an absolute answer this would be interesting...

Best wishes, Michael

BrigieDarling

I got my one and only ever speeding ticket in GA.... $507.

I was doing about 90 because the trucks I was passing were doing 88.

dbark

Why does it make life easier? I'm just wondering because I was planning on using my US license when I am in the UK next.


Debbie

Patrick

You have no case, mainly because you are a resident of the GA and as far as the non-immigrant of the united states bit - you are not a resident of the UK. It cleary says "OR a non-immigrant of the United States, who is at least 16 years of age and who is in immediate possession of a valid driving permit issued in the home state or country of that person’s residence" - as you are a GA resident you are no longer a UK resident so the second category does not apply.

Patrick

You are confusing the non-immigrant thing, your visa is non-immigrant but you (in the case of the GA drving manual) are not non-immigrants as you are not resident of the another state or country - you are a resident of the state of GA and as such should of got your GA license within 30 days. Stop confusing the fact that your visa is non-immigrant, because you are resident of GA and as such subject to all there laws for residents - whether or not your visa is non-immigrant or not.

You are also confusing the words residence and resident - you are resident in GA, whether you own a residence in the UK is irrelevant as you do not live there, you live, work and pay taxes in GA, therefor you are a resident.

If you go to court saying that you are obviously a non-immigrant because you have a non-immigrant visa and a residence in the UK even though you live here they will just think your a moron. I cant see how you think the driver manual is vague - it seems straight forward to me.

Ray

I will go along with Patrick on that one... but its worth fighting they may just drop it to save the judge having to look it all up.
You will never win the failing to stop... big money earner all over the States..

mlevene

The final outcome. The case for not having a license was dismissed without any argument.

A very sympathetic female judge who had just jailed someone for DUI, seemed amused by the London accent, the excuse of being late to collect the keds, and then reduced the recommended fine, for running the stop to $69.

All in all a good result.

NC Penguin

Thanks for the update.

You and your spouse will be getting GA licenses now, won't you? If either of you get caught again without GA licenses, who knows if you'd be so lucky with the next judge.

mlevene

Yes indeed, think we were plain lucky. I already had my license, and after all of this was sorted, my wife obtained her GA license.

On reflection it would have saved a court appearance and worry about being charged for driving without a GA license, if my wife had taken her test earlier!

Best wishes to you all and thank you for your comments.