Before moving on to the confusion with licenses, let us remind you that earlier AvtoPortal reported on what happens if you forget your license at home. Another useful article was devoted to the procedure for replacing licenses.
Real examples
One of AvtoPortal's readers recently told us in a letter about an incident that happened to him. Allegedly, an inspector stopped him to check his documents and almost let him go, but for unknown reasons decided to check his driver's documents against the database. He contacted the dispatcher, dictated all the data (full name, date of birth, etc.) and asked to confirm the authenticity of the driver's license. Our reader calmly waited for the dispatcher's response, which ultimately surprised him greatly... the traffic police officer announced that he was drawing up a protocol on the seizure of a fake license.
What to do in such situations? If you know that you received your license legally, and did not buy it "under the table," remain calm. If the license was handed to you personally at the MREO, then most likely it is genuine, and the glitch that occurred during the check is nothing more than an error in the database. Do not raise your voice or make claims. In this case, the inspector is acting as a controller of compliance with laws and instructions, and it is not his fault. Your goal is to ask the traffic police officer to make a repeated request, but not by name and date of birth, but by the license form number.
Not only readers, but also our employees have encountered this. For example, AvtoPortal's editor also had his license almost confiscated. The reason was the same. Moreover, he had studied at a DOSAAF school and passed exams at the MREO. At the same time, his latest license had an increased number of open categories. Why was the license not in the database? It is easy to explain...
When opening new categories, a new license form is issued and entered into the database, while the old driver's license is invalidated and surrendered. However, its number is kept in the database. This is done so that, if necessary, the entire history of the driver's "license" can be restored. When checking the inspector's request for document verification against the database, the operator saw data not for the latest document, but for the previous one, whose number, of course, did not match the one in the driver's hands. Most likely, the current license also appeared, but for some reason he did not pay attention to it. Especially since the owner's data matched.
Unfortunately, confusion with documents is not uncommon. It happens that legal documents are not in the database for one simple reason: they were simply forgotten to be entered (or accidentally deleted). In this case, you need to:
- contact the archive where this information is stored on paper
- get a certificate confirming the presence of the information
- write an application to enter it into the electronic database
Now let's look at another situation related to a driver's license: loss or theft of the document.
Restoring a driver's license
If you suddenly cannot find your license, the first thing to do is contact the police and file a report.
We advise you to file a report about the theft of documents, because in this case you will not have to pay a fine for losing them. Be prepared that the police will most likely try to persuade you to write a report about loss (in that case, there is no need to open a criminal case and search for the stolen item). In any case, you will be issued a certificate. With it, you must go to the MREO and write an application for document restoration.
The procedure for obtaining a restored license requires:
- identity documents,
- a certificate of loss or theft,
- a record card of passing exams on traffic rules and driving (it is given to everyone who has gone through the legal procedure of obtaining a driver's license).
If all documents are available, there should be no difficulties. After presenting the documents, you begin the restoration procedure. First, you will be issued a temporary license for seven days, after which you pay all necessary state fees and receive a permanent license. If for some reason (for example, a shortage of "plastic" etc.) it is not ready within this period, you will have to extend the temporary one for another seven days by contacting the same MREO.
How to restore a license if there is no exam card
If the record card is lost, restoring the license will be more difficult. In this case, there are three options to solve the problem.
1) Retake the exams or restore the record card at the place of training (driving school).
2) The second option is practically impossible if the driving school no longer exists at the time of application. The first option remains: retake the exams. In principle, if you are confident in your knowledge, this should not be a big problem. You will just lose more time.
3) The third option is quite popular in Ukraine, although it cannot be called legal. You can convince an MREO employee to turn a blind eye to the absence of the card in exchange for your sincere gratitude and respect. But this can only be done if the traffic police database contains information about your driver's license.
In conclusion, information for those who have changed their surname but still drive with an old license. If a traffic police officer stops you and wants to issue a fine for allegedly not replacing your driver's license in time, you can safely call the traffic police trust line and complain about the inspector's unlawful actions. The reason is that failure to replace a license in time after a surname change is not punishable. The maximum that threatens a motorist who did not apply to the MREO in time to replace the license is a written explanation. MREO employees may demand it under the guise of a penalty. But, as AvtoPortal's source in the traffic police said, this happens extremely rarely.
