Paper driving licences to be swapped for plastic

CYPRUS will replace paper driving licences for plastic no later than next year, reports said yesterday.

The new licence, which is styled like a credit card and will have a photograph, is already in use in a large number of other European countries and looks set to be introduced in Cyprus by the start of 2011. Reports said the new licence will also allow motorists to indicate whether they would like to be an organ donor. A special code will be printed on to the card to clearly mark the driver’s wishes.

According to Politis procedures to adopt and implement the necessary legislation is already well underway and the Road Transport Department will be in a position to issue the first licences by the end of 2010. “We are at the final stages of preparing the terms and requirements so that we can put the project out to tender, We are expecting an interest to be shown by companies, one of which will undertake to issue the new type of driver’s license,” said senior Road Transport Officer, Yiannis Nicolaides.

The new licences will be available from the Road Transport Deparment and Citizen’s Advice Bureaus. Drivers currently in possession of a licences with an expiry date as late as 2020 or 2022 will be able to continue to use their paper licence or to apply for a new plastic one. However as of 2035 all paper licences will be invalid and therefore all drivers much possess a plastic one, said Nicolaides. The licence will also be manufactured in such a way that it will decrease the risk of fraud, he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.