On Wednesday, the Transport and Tourism Committee adopted draft new EU rules to end the impunity of non-resident drivers and improve road safety. Under the current rules, if a driver commits an offence in a country other than the one which issued their licence and loses it, the sanction will most of the time only be valid in the country where the offence was committed and entails no restrictions in the rest of the EU.

No escape from driving disqualification and stricter timeline

Under the proposed new rules, decisions on the suspension, restriction or withdrawal of a non-resident’s driving licence will have to be passed on to the EU country which issued the driving licence, to ensure the disqualification decision is applied across all EU countries.

MEPs propose the expansion of the list of severe traffic offences that would trigger the exchange of information on driving disqualification. In addition to the proposal by the Commission to include excessive speeding, driving under…