Surrender ye olde Australian drivers licence

Congestion Charge

In 2003 London became the world’s first major city to introduce a congestion charge to reduce the flow of traffic into its centre from Monday to Friday. While the number of cars entering the ‘congestion zone’ has fallen as a result, driving in London can still be slow, particularly in the rush hour.

As most things in London, It took a long time to accedentally stumble across.

Whilst considering the purchase of a BMW (fulfilling a long term goal - and cause I can) in the UK as an alternative to public transport, I did a bit of research regarding the expense of it all.

Car insurance. Mostly nowadays done online, I filled in my details. £3000 per year..... hmmm... is it really that expensive? Lets do a check.

I changed one key element - international drivers licence to UK drivers licence. £600 per year....

This is something I need to look into further! Locally known as the DVLA, (aka Motor Reg!) I discovered that technically, after 1 year residing in the UK, an Australian drivers licence is invalid. There is however one option. Exchange your Oz licence for a Brit one. Its not all that hard;-

Send in some cash, a painstaking filled in form, your british passport!!!!!!!!!!!, a new passport sized shot and the old Oz licence (you know the one with the nice piccy from when you were in your early 20s). Wait for 3 weeks and hope that some welshperson doesnt accidently misplace/copy/steal/sell on Ebay your British passport.

Well on returning from Cork Ireland for St Pats day, there was my returned passport in the mail. I felt I had slightly betrayed the passport by using my Oz one in its place. But at least I got a stamp!

So its official - I can legally drive in the UK - minus the international insurance price tag status in my bank account!