Actually, to strip this down even further to its essentials, suppose the young lady is from Georgia, and holds a valid Georgia license. She tells the cop she has been living in Tennessee for 6 months. Is she subject to arrest by the Georgia cop for not having a valid license?
Doesn’t a Quebec driver’s license have both French and English on it? Like the Ontario license linked to by wolfpup in post #80, I sort of thought all Canadian provinces and territories would have bi-lingual licenses.
To this specific part of your post, I will just point out that if you wish to avoid all states where small town cops target out of town drivers, well, enjoy your new country.
New Brunswick is actually the only officially bilingual province per the Charter. However driver licensing is provincial so not every province’s license is in french and english.
The part you are failing to understand is that while this may be true in Tennessee, it has absolutely nothing to do with a traffic stop in Georgia.
Sure, if the lady was taking grad school in Georgia, or was otherwise a resident in Georgia, everything you say would be true and your analogy with Ontario would make sense.
But she isn’t, and it doesn’t.
The actual analogy is to a US resident taking grad school in Quebec, who is stopped while visiting Ontario for a day-trip. What license would she have to produce?
Let’s check the Ontario rules and see!
Drive in Ontario: visitors | ontario.ca
Answer: she’s been in Ontario for less than three months, so - her US license!
It doesn’t make the slightest difference if she’s been in Quebec for a year, and so perhaps needs some sort of additional paperwork in Quebec.
Just like in the US, driving is “state level”. Ontario only cares how long she’s been in Ontario.
This is exactly the same as in Georgia, according to the Georgia website. This Cook Country solicitor is talking nonsense - in that, it may well be totally true that the lady needs a Tennessee license in Tennessee, but (and this is the important part) the implication that the Georgia charge was somehow justified by that is, basically, nonsense.
Really, what he’s up to is attempting to excuse the inexcusable, by citing completely irrelevant facts (that is, the situation in Tennessee) rather than saying, as he ought, “our bad, we screwed this one up, sorry”.
What if the young lady is from Tbilisi?
It’s you who are apparently having trouble understanding.
Failure to get a Tennessee license might be a violation of the law, but if it is, it’s a violation of TENNESSEE law, not Georgia law.
Until sometime last year, Israelis could drive in the U.S. using their Israeli license. (That’s a good thing, since my Maryland license is long expired.) At some point, the rules changed, and now we need to have an international license as well.
The missing part that may help Sirreal72 to understand:
State or local police in Georgia have NO authority to arrest anyone for violating a Tennessee law. Sirreal72, if it helps you to understand, this is the same reason why many minor criminals would prefer to leave the country - the cops in another place have no authority to arrest them.
Apparently. Would they be arrested? Probably not, unless the officer was suspicious for some reason. Logically speaking, what is the upside for a officer to arrest someone if the charges will be dropped? They have to do a ton of paperwork, deal with an irate citizen, irritated boss etc. Are Georgia traffic laws too strict? In my opinion, yes. But the police aren’t any more (or less) likely to be jerks as anywhere else in the country. This whole situation was an perfect storm of bad luck and circumstances. Some of the factors that seem relevant:
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Driver gave another state where she lived. (Note: Being a student in another state isn’t considered being a “resident”, but if you live there 6 months after graduating then you aren’t a student and need to get a new license.)
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She was pulled over on a road where police are far more vigilant about looking for suspicious behavior and with a significant amount of fake ID being given and/or identity theft.
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Was her id in English? (Unknown…but if not, she was supposed to have international license.)
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Driving without a **valid **license isn’t a traffic violation in GA. It is a crime. (Yes, that is draconian…but so are Super Speeder laws in my opinion. Talk to the politicians, I know I do.) Politicians want to give authorities to power to crack down on crime and are willing to trade others personal freedom for increased security. Welcome to post 9/11…the terrorists won. (We should have just killed the terrorists but otherwise ignored the security threats. Allowing them to influence our personal lives gives them a win.)
But whatever. I am not defending anyone, I don’t care enough to have a emotional stake. I was just attempting to give a rational assessment of circumstances. If you are Canadian (or American) and want to trash the state in an emotional reaction, then enjoy.
(Sigh) We are getting into the weeds here. She was not arrested for not having a Tenn. license. She was arrested on the suspicion of driving without a valid license. That is a Georgia law.
Using your example, if a criminal fled Canada (or Mexico) to avoid being charged with breaking the law and came to the U.S. then they wouldn’t be arrested for whatever crime they committed in another country…they would be arrested for breaking the U.S. law of being in the country illegally.