Help me feel better about renting a car.

[Eva_Luna]

@chappachula

If you are in a place where you don’t speak the language, you don’t want to mess with unpredictable hassles (even at home, I don’t like hassles. But at home, you can spend 2 weeks making phone calls and waiting for answers.)

It doesn’t matter if most of the people where you are speak English…When a hassle happens, it only matters if the one specific person you have to deal with speaks English. Sure, in a tourist area, most of the policemen will be able to help you…but what if the one who shows up at your accident site doesn’t know English?.

Or you may be in a place where even if you do speak the language, and even if your CC (or other) policy covers you, you will end up on the wrong side of a debate with a local cop in a foreign country that you are unlikely to win.

Case in point: we went to Panama a year and a half ago, and the one trip prep detail I forgot about was to figure out whether our credit card covered insurance for foreign car rentals. (They did, as it turns out.) I didn’t want to try to figure it out at the rental counter in Boquete, so we just ended up buying the local insurance (which cost more than the actual car rental).

So in Boquete, a couple of times we ran into police roadblocks, when all the cop wanted to see was proof of insurance. Not even driver’s license, just proof of insurance. Now I am fluent in Spanish, but even if I’d remembered to print out the Visa car insurance documentation and had it with me, it would have all been in English. Did I want to spend a chunk of my vacation possibly being dragged down to the local police station to document my insurance coverage? Not so much.

(My co-worker with the Panamanian wife says the same thing happens to them regularly. They go every year. He lets her do the talking, but they still get the local rental car insurance.)

[Nava]

@Kiwi_Fruit

About the IDP, I didn’t bother. My licence is written in English using standard alphabet. Mostly the IDP carries your identification details in nine languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, Greek, German, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, French) in case you need to communicate with foreign authorities. The Netherlands don’t require it for NZers, but Spain does, so probably also requires it for an American.

Spain requires it for Americans (whether rental agents do is a different question), but it’s because some of the most basic rules are different. NO turn on red whatsoever, for example. A three-point turn… in Spain would be known as “if a cop sees you, you’re getting proctologized with your own car”. In theory, getting an International Permit includes getting taught those things.

[leahcim]

@Nava

In theory, getting an International Permit includes getting taught those things.

Yeah, it sounds like the actual reality is, “you go to AAA and ask them for one with some passport photos and a fee”.

[Eva_Luna]

@Nava

Spain requires it for Americans (whether rental agents do is a different question), but it’s because some of the most basic rules are different. NO turn on red whatsoever, for example. A three-point turn… in Spain would be known as “if a cop sees you, you’re getting proctologized with your own car”. In theory, getting an International Permit includes getting taught those things.

Huh. I got one in Chicago 10 years ago specifically to use in Spain. The process consisted of me paying $30 for someone to fill out a multilingual form with my driver’s license information on it. No traffic law instruction was involved.

[Kiwi_Fruit]

@Nava

Spain requires it for Americans (whether rental agents do is a different question), but it’s because some of the most basic rules are different. NO turn on red whatsoever, for example. A three-point turn… in Spain would be known as “if a cop sees you, you’re getting proctologized with your own car”. In theory, getting an International Permit includes getting taught those things.

The IDP is only a document with your domestic DL details on it and a photo. The convention (Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, 1949) establishing the IDP specifically allows use of your domestic DL in the contries that are signatories or have agreed to follow the terms of the treaty.

It does not require you to receive instruction on the rules in the countries you are visiting. If the rental agencies care, they will provide information booklets for overseas drivers. If they don’t care, you get nothing. That’s what I got in the US and Netherlands.