I may have lost the battle...

.... but may still win the war!

OJ vs Italian bureaucracy, round 15: "driver's licence edition"

Today, I made another valiant attempt at getting an Italian driver's licence and failed. I did manage to get extremely close though, and I hope that next time I may manage! Anyway, the story:

I have a Dutch licence and it's expering in a few weeks. But thanks to European standardisation etc, one must replace a licence at the place of residence (as opposed to place of nationality), as long as one is within the EU. This means I have to get an Italian licence. So, I initiated some internet searching months ago and found many scary stories. However, when I found the website of the local Licence Office, it all seemed fairly straightforward. Seemed, that is.

Stage one was getting a doctor's declaration, so some time ago, i tried to make an appointment. However, an appointment could only be made with a translation of my current licence and a stamp from the Consulate. So I called the Consulate who told me that was impossible. However, apparently, they made a deal with the Licence Office that a Dutch "declaration of validity", together with the "declaration of validity regarding the declaration of validity" (I kid thee not) from the Consulate, would be sufficient. So, I requested the Dutch DoV, which obviously had to be done by mail, and cannot be done via the internet. However, i wasn't willing to give up too easily and continued my internet-search until I found, on the Ministery of Transportation website, an official list of documents that did NOT include the aforementioned documents.

So, I tried the doctor's office again, this time not really particularly mentioning that it was a licence conversion that I was looking for. And yes, success: appointment made! Of course, this means the payment of 36€ for the doctor, 14€ in tax, 9€ for the licence office and 29€ for the licence office (plus the transaction costs for all these separate contributions that can only be done in post offices), but I managed to see him. Of course, he then realised I did not have a translation or DoV, so he at first refused to sign. But thanks to my print of the ministery's website, I was able to convince him to sign anyway. Victory was mine!!!!

Unfortunately, the Licence Office is actually outside Milan, so I tried to double check whether I had all the documents by calling them several times, but to no avail (IF they answer the phone, they randomly hang up as soon as you ask a question: it's very odd). So this morning, I went for the office directly. Good news: it was open. Good news nr 2: I only had to queue for 1 hour, good news nr 3: my documents were COMPLETE...

Wait, what? I have never heard that before at an Italian office when I get there for the first time... I thought I was going to faint from surprise!!! "Sure", the kind lady says, "you can come and pick up your new licence in a month or so", and gets ready to staple my licence to the request... Uh, wait, what? Staple my licence to the request? Are you crazy, I need my licence!!! And no, a temporary replacement licence is not enough: I am renting a car in Germany this weekend...

"Oh well, in that case: come back another time, and we'll see whether your documents are complete then..."


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I was SO close! By next week, when I will make the next attempt, I am sure they will have come up with 10 new documents for me to bring etc... And I was SO close now....... *sigh*

Running tally for my Italian licence: 110€

Ciao,
OJ