Driving licence expiry on birthdays next month - Motorists can have their driving licence expiry dates synchronised with their birthdays from...

Driving licence expiry on birthdays next month
By LIM WEY WEN
wwen@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: Motorists can have their driving licence expiry dates synchronised with their birthdays from mid-November.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha, who announced this yesterday, said the Cabinet had approved the move.

“In the past, there were many cases of motorists only realising their driving licences had expired when they were stopped by the police or after getting into an accident.

“Now they have no excuse to forget the expiry date anymore,” said Kong at a press conference at Wisma MCA yesterday.

Under the new initiative, motorists whose licences expire after mid-November will be able to extend the validity to cover the period in between their licence expiry date and their date of birth.

For example, if their licence expires in December 2011 and their birthday is in July, a one-year renewal of their licence will give them a new licence that is valid for a year and seven months, from December 2011 until July 2013.

After that, they will be required to renew their licence in July.

Under the initiative, motorists whose birth dates are less than six months away from the expiry date of their licences will not be charged for the extra period of validity.

However, motorists who have birth dates that are the same or more than six months from the expiry date of their licence, will be charged a maximum fee of six months.

About 20,000 motorists who were born on Feb 29 will have their driving licences synchronised to March 1.

“No one will lose out in this initiative as we plan to implement this exercise over a period of six years.

“So, even those who have renewed their licences for five years will still be eligible,” Kong said.

He said the fees for driving licences remained unchanged, adding that currently there were about 10 million active driving licence holders.

The Transport Ministry estimates the exercise will cost the Government RM70mil in uncollected revenue.

Kong also stressed that this did not mean that all motorists should rush to renew their licences in November as it was an ongoing exercise until all driving licences in Malaysia were synchronised.

He said the ministry would announce the exact date of implementation soon.