I recently got pulled over by the border guard. He asked me for my driver’s license and registration, and I duly handed over my American license and the international drivers permit I got a couple of years ago in the States.
“What is this?” the border guard asked.
“It’s an international driving permit,” I replied.
“Who issued it?” he asked.
“I got it in America.”
He thumbs through it, then asked, “Yes, but by what authority.”
“It was an agreement by the United Nations, in the late 40’s I believe. Participating countries agreed to recognize each others’ driving license.”
“Hold on.” He goes back to his truck, where another border officer is sitting. He comes back and tells me what I’d been expecting all along: “This is not valid. It doesn’t have a stamp from the United Nations or anything.”
If something in Poland does not have a stamp, it’s not valid. End of story.
The international driving permit has all this information explained…in English, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and a handful of other languages, but no Polish. And this guy speaks no foreign languages.
What to do?
Kinga was sitting with me, and he suggested that she drive home, because I’m clearly driving illegally.
Which goes to show, that if the officer is ignorant and monolingual, “legal” is a completely relative term.