EU gears up for smart card driving licences

PLASTIC smart cards are to replace the current three-page paper driving licences in a European-wide crackdown on forged and illegal licences.

The cards are an effort to do away with driving licence tourism where people disqualified in one member state apply for a licence in a neighbouring one to beat a driving ban.

The credit card-size licence, details of which were announced in Brussels yesterday, will replace more than 80 different types of licence issued across the European Union.