Driving on USA licence in UK.

I was wondering in the rules of using a foreign licence in the UK they state you can drive for one year from the time of entry before you have to apply for a UK licence. What if you leave the country and then return would you not then start all over again?

No, that doesn't work. It's not really one year from the date you entered the country rather than one year from the date you became a resident.

What if your not a resident, but come here for 5 months twice a year.

What if your not a resident, but come here for 5 months twice a year.

No U.K. license needed, since officially you are still a visitor.

But do beware that you won't be allowed to spend 10 months a year here indefinitley.  That's definitley going to set off some alarm bells for the IO.

I came here on a fiancee visa in May, but then left and re-entered on my FLR in October, which date stamp is the driving regulations based on for the one year waiver?

But do beware that you won't be allowed to spend 10 months a year here indefinitley.  That's definitley going to set off some alarm bells for the IO.

True, and then you'll need to UK license, especially b/c insurance companies here will take your money, but if you have an accident, they won't necessarily pay out if they determine you should have had a UK/EU license.

I came here on a fiancee visa in May, but then left and re-entered on my FLR in October, which date stamp is the driving regulations based on for the one year waiver?

It'd be the first visa you arrived with...thus fiancee visa.

True, and then you'll need to UK license, especially b/c insurance companies here will take your money, but if you have an accident, they won't necessarily pay out if they determine you should have had a UK/EU license.

Although there are disclaimers in the polcies about cover being void if you break the law in some way, they are still actually obliged to pay out any third-party liability claims no matter what. 

It'd be the first visa you arrived with...thus fiancee visa.

Thanks Onetiger, although thats not really the answer I wanted    I was hoping for a longer time span to do the license thing...

I suspect that there are actually three different sets of rules that govern using a US license in UK, and they don't necessarily agree with each other. 1 is British law, 1 is international treaty and the other is motor vehicle department interpretation of British law.

International treaty between US and UK says that your US license will be honored in Britain. British law says that you have to get a British license one year after settlement and the motor vehicle department defines settlement as getting your FLR.

You could, as pointed out, drive on your US license and deal with buying cars, getting insurance and being stopped by cops indefinitely as they would be on international treaty. Somebody would have to get into an accident and take all these issues to court and let the lawyers argue it to find out for sure what would happen. I'm sure any decent lawyer would claim that you weren't actually settled in the UK because you still maintained a US license.

What the court would decide in such a case, I can't say. But the court is neither the MVD or the IO, and the fact that we as an expat community have heard no tales of people sent to prison for driving on a valid US license probably says something. As their nice Queen once said, they are a pragmatic people, caring more for practice than theory. Which is probably why it doesn't bother them to have 3 sets of sometimes conflicting laws on the subject.

Thanks YankeeHarp that was very insightful! 

You won't get sent to jail...but if you do get caught out after having been in the UK for over the year, I've heard that there are some amazingly HEFTY fines to pay - somewhere in the thousands of pounds.  I'd prefer not to push it!

The law specifies that your U.S. license is valid for a year from establishing residence.    The argument would then  be as to at what point you actually become resident.   I suspect that the answer which links this to your arrival on a specific visa or the granting of change of immigration status etc. may well have been determined by case law at some point rather than by statute.

As OT says though, some of the penalties imposed here for things which would be treated as relatively minor traffic infractions elsewhere can be quite draconian.   

Just try driving with an expired "tax disc," for example -- The equivalent of license plate tags.  Tags which have only just expired are a minor issue in many places; pay the renewal plus a $10 late charge or something of that nature.    In the U.K., you'll feel as though it's being treated like a major felony.

Here's a site which has some information on UK licensing law:

http://www.freelawyer.co.uk/vlawyer/actfile.asp?seq=2&subject1=4&subject2=5