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Renewing my Thai DL, a pleasant experience....


Pumpuynarak

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BTW, I drove nearly 10y with IDL when I lived in LOS. 

Never bothered with a local one.

Have the HKG license simply because it is hand out if you have a license of one of the countries they have agreements with.

Here in Indo, no plan to drive, so no need for it.

Drove in Egypt, Saudi, Korea,... always IDL

 

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2 hours ago, Sir_Fondles said:

last time I sat through it I think I was the only one watching, everyone else was playing candycrush on their phones !!

Me too except because of the sun shining  on the screen I gave up after 10 minutes or so.

By the way, I know somebody who let his licence run out and he had to take the whole test again. On the other hand it was several months before he realised. He failed the retest as well.

 

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11 minutes ago, Jambo said:

Me too except because of the sun shining  on the screen I gave up after 10 minutes or so.

By the way, I know somebody who let his licence run out and he had to take the whole test again. On the other hand it was several months before he realised. He failed the retest as well.

 

yeah 12 months is the rule that I know of for renewal, go past that and you start  from scratch.

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25 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

BTW, I drove nearly 10y with IDL when I lived in LOS. 

Never bothered with a local one.

Have the HKG license simply because it is hand out if you have a license of one of the countries they have agreements with.

Here in Indo, no plan to drive, so no need for it.

Drove in Egypt, Saudi, Korea,... always IDL

 

Officially if you drive in Thailand for more than 3 months you should get a Thai Driving Licence.  Now that depends on your Visa status etc.

Being a tourist then IDL good but if you are on a Non O etc etc and residing in Thailand there is an expectancy to upgrade to a Thai licence.

Possibly when you were in Thailand this was just another law that was not imposed regularly. They have tightened up a lot.

I found out back in 2011 after being stopped on my bike and asked for licence and passport that I had being driving in Thailand illegally despite having an IDL. I was warned by my friendly BIB to go and get a Thai Driving Licence.

I went to the driving licence office on route 36 the very next day. I got the licence and ironically on the way back I was stopped by a cop and asked for my licence. The look on his face when he saw my shiny new licence which had been issued 20 minutes before. He looked quite shocked and then laughed, I was waved on my way.

Ever since I got both my car and motorbike licence I have never had an issue with the police, in fact I have always been dealt with courteously. 

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2 minutes ago, Horizondave said:

Officially if you drive in Thailand for more than 3 months you should get a Thai Driving Licence.  Now that depends on your Visa status etc.

Being a tourist then IDL good but if you are on a Non O etc etc and residing in Thailand there is an expectancy to upgrade to a Thai licence.

Possibly when you were in Thailand this was just another law that was not imposed regularly. They have tightened up a lot.

I found out back in 2011 after being stopped on my bike and asked for licence and passport that I had being driving in Thailand illegally despite having an IDL. I was warned by my friendly BIB to go and get a Thai Driving Licence.

I went to the driving licence office on route 36 the very next day. I got the licence and ironically on the way back I was stopped by a cop and asked for my licence. The look on his face when he saw my shiny new licence which had been issued 20 minutes before. He looked quite shocked and then laughed, I was waved on my way.

Ever since I got both my car and motorbike licence I have never had an issue with the police, in fact I have always been dealt with courteously. 

Agreed it shouldn't be used long term. But as you say, 25 y ago things were more "relaxed".

And an IDL is difficult to get without a address in your home country.

Tried to get the French IDL before coming here, but no way without proof of residency in France. 

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22 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

There's also the matter of a denied insurance claim if you have an accident and are in country longer than 90 days on an IDL. At that point you're technically driving w/o a valid license and the insurance company would have cause for denying a claim.

Yes, probably. In my case it was a company car, insured by them and I didn't really worried about that. But you're right, its all fine when nothing happens but in case of serious accident you could be in serious shit.

 

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  • 2 years later...
On 10/13/2019 at 1:06 PM, Thai Spice said:

Yes, probably. In my case it was a company car, insured by them and I didn't really worried about that. But you're right, its all fine when nothing happens but in case of serious accident you could be in serious shit.

 

just want to confirm when you say IDL do you mean IDP 1949 international driving permit?

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My 2 year licences both expired May 2021, I was not able to visit Thailand to renew. I previously downloaded the DLT app but it is all in Thai and I forgot the combination of options that took me to a picture of the licences. I still receive notifications from DLT but they are all in Thai.  :default_crybaby:

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  • 3 months later...
On 2/23/2022 at 7:08 PM, bob lt said:

My 2 year licences both expired May 2021, I was not able to visit Thailand to renew. I previously downloaded the DLT app but it is all in Thai and I forgot the combination of options that took me to a picture of the licences. I still receive notifications from DLT but they are all in Thai.  :default_crybaby:

The last time I checked, DLT was only available to Thai Nationals, not ex-pats. That may have changed since it has been a year since I checked. I renewed my auto and motorbike DLs about a year ago going from 2 years to 5 years. Since I renewed shortly after my birthday I got close to a 6 year renewal, I a good to 2027 DL wise, not a sure about myself. 😏

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9 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

The last time I checked, DLT was only available to Thai Nationals, not ex-pats. That may have changed since it has been a year since I checked. I renewed my auto and motorbike DLs about a year ago going from 2 years to 5 years. Since I renewed shortly after my birthday I got close to a 6 year renewal, I a good to 2027 DL wise, not a sure about myself. 😏

That was the case last year when I renewed.  I had to go to the office with my papers and they told me the next date they were handling foreigners.  This was in Rayong.

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9 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

The last time I checked, DLT was only available to Thai Nationals, not ex-pats. That may have changed since it has been a year since I checked. I renewed my auto and motorbike DLs about a year ago going from 2 years to 5 years. Since I renewed shortly after my birthday I got close to a 6 year renewal, I a good to 2027 DL wise, not a sure about myself. 😏

I used to be able to log in and download a digital copy of my licences,  there had been talk that digital copies would be acceptable at check points. 

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