Driving license tourism: More drivers bypassing driving test with fake foreign license

Driving license exchange

If you have a valid foreign driver’s license, you can exchange it in the Netherlands – if you are entitled to do so – for a Dutch driver’s license. More than 40,000 driver’s license exchanges take place each year. The RDW’s Driving Licenses Expertise Center – which checks foreign driving licenses for authenticity and validity – is increasingly coming across fake driving licenses. So reports the Radio NPO 1 program The Crime Bureau.

Detour

Latest figures show that over 130 fake foreign driving licenses have already been intercepted last year compared to 117 a year earlier. Most of the fake driving licenses come from Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. A striking number of fake driver’s licenses from Pakistan have turned up over the past year, 18 in all. According to the RDW, more and more people from Syria are also traveling to Romania to exchange their driving licenses. Then they come to the Netherlands and exchange their driver’s license again. This is done because the Netherlands has no agreements with Syria for the direct exchange of driving licenses, so a detour is taken.

Bypassing exams

The main reason for surrendering a fake foreign driver’s license is to avoid the theory and/or practical exams. This is done because driving lessons and exams are perceived as costly, time-consuming and difficult. In addition, the Dutch driver’s license has a better status than a driver’s license from the country of origin.

Doubt

According to Wim Leutscher, driving license expertise center advisor, the RDW does not just issue driving licenses. “If we find that a foreign driver’s license comes in, we assume it’s fake anyway. We are so responsible, we are issuing an identity document. It just has to be 100 percent good. If there is any kind of doubt at all, it doesn’t go through.”

Also read: How much do you spend for your driver’s license?