Persuasive Essay On Driving License

Moving around

Your driving licence

If you are not a European, you will need to present your licence at your local

Préfecture and they will send this back to your home country’s licencing centre. You will be issued with a receipt that allows you to drive in France, but not abroad. As your original driving licence will be kept this poses a problem if you wish to travel outside France. Soon you will receive a French driving licence (Euro-standard) permis de conduire with your photo. You have one year from receiving your Carte de Séjour to make this exchange, otherwise you have to take the two part driving test in French. You can be fined if the police ask to see your driving licence and you do not have it with you in the car. The driving test

From 1997 however, all driving licences issued within the EU are valid in France and no longer need to be exchanged (administrative directive

R123-1E/97). Your licence will only be recognized subject to certain conditions: your licence is valid; penalty points are non-transferable, (but, for example, a driver banned in the UK may not drive in France); holders must

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HOW TO LIVE IN FRANCE be of the age required for the category of licence in question under French law. There are further conditions relating to drivers of vehicles carrying more than 8 passengers and to drivers of goods vehicles. Be careful though as some gendarmes have not yet heard of this ruling. You can get a letter from your embassy or consulate to demonstrate the legality of your European driving licence. For Americans, unless you are from the states of Colorado, Connecticut,

Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania or South Carolina, you have to take the test all over again—a driving and written test—(in French). An oral exam is available. If you are a resident of the states mentioned, you can submit your valid state driver’s licence to get

Your licence will be marked verres correcteurs and you will not legally be able to drive in non-prescription sunglasses in summer . . .

(You can get prescription designer sunglasses, but at a higher price than standard sunglasses, except perhaps for some specific designer framed types).

Driving right

In France driving is on the right lane of roads as in all main land Europe and many other parts of the world. If you are from the few countries that still drive on the left side of the road, be very careful! If you are driving your foreign left-hand drive car (driver on the left) on two lane roads keep yourself closest to the gutter outside your window. On autoroutes, the faster lanes are on your left, so be aware of very fast cars overtaking on your blind side. It helps if you have a passenger to look out for you before attempting an overtaking manoeuvres (and also at car parks exit booths and péages).

If you are hiring a right-hand drive car for the first time a useful trick is to only use the wing mirror on your left to check behind you. This prevents you from mistakenly looking up and to the left for your rear-view mirror (which is now on the right!). Soon you will be happily driving on the right using