You are in Sri Lanka and you want to rent a scooter to explore the country’s unique, exotic beauty at your ease but you don’t have a driver’s license?
Do not be daunted. It is very unlikely that any of the dudes renting out scooters in Sri Lanka will insist – or even ask in the first place – on you having a driver’s license in order to lease you a bike. The truth is that even if you do have a driver’s license, you most probably do only have it theoretically. Unless you have issued an international one, your national driver’s license is not valid for driving in Sri Lanka. Whether you have your country’s driver’s license or you don’t have any at all, in the eyes of the law it is one and the same thing.
In theory, if you get caught by the police driving without a license you are eligible to pay a 20,000 LKR fine, however, this will very rarely actually happen. In my experience, I have driven extensively in many parts of the country and never paid a dime.
The thing is that, apparently, cops have orders not to bother tourist drivers for no good reason; driving without a license does not count as such. Imagine what would happen if tourists driving their scooters around the country’s touristic hotspots were every so often deprived of 20,000 LKR… Sure, the government would earn some good fast money. But tourists would very soon grow weary of it and stop driving altogether; many of them would even change their preferred holiday destination for some other Asian country. In the long run, the national economy – and especially the local, tourism-centric ones – would suffer greatly.
That’s probably why cops around the country – and that is generally truer for areas with high travelers concentration – tend to not stop foreign drivers and let them drive in peace. In the rare cases they do, now, it’s usually only after provocation: particularly violating traffic regulations. Furthermore, when they do stop you, chances are minimal they will ask you to pay the official fine. They will almost always try to cash in for themselves on a smaller, bribe-like fine instead; usually between 5,000 and 10,000 LKR.
In my case, I happened to be stopped four times in total by traffic cops in different places around the country. Upon all these four instances, they tried to get from me a bribe (supposedly a fine) in order to let me go but, employing different tactics every time, depending on my mood, I managed to get away relatively easily without sparing a single rupee. Here’s what happened at each of my encounters with Sri Lanka’s law enforcers…
The first time was in Weligama. Weligama is one of the most unlikely places for police to stop you. I stayed and was regularly driving there for a whole month without ever having a problem. That one time they stopped me was because my friend in the backseat didn’t have a helmet on. They insisted that I pay them 5,000 LKR for not having a license. This time I turned against them rather aggressively. I refused categorically to hand them the bike keys after they asked me to. I took my phone out and was quick to take pictures of one of them before he hid his face away. I also noted their names down, which were written on their badges, and threatened to indict them for getting bribed. They yielded soon enough and let us go.
The second time was near the town of Ukuwela, north of Kandy. They were good blokes. They got provoked to stop us when they saw me driving with one hand while recording video with the other. This time we kept an easy-going, friendly line, telling jokes and praising their beautiful country and its nice people. They mentioned that I’m not supposed to drive without a license but they didn’t ask for money at all and let us go on amiable terms.
The third time was in Kandy downtown. This time they stopped us with absolutely no provocation and was by far the toughest one. There was that one junior cop, probably a trainee, who endeavored in all seriousness and perseverance to prove his authority and make some cash out of me; to the point that he got on my nerves for good. Although I initially tried to keep my temper and stick to the friendly approach, he soon drove me out of mind completely and I shifted to the aggressive one. He retaliated fiercely. He threatened to lock me up for the night and stuff. We might have stayed there a full hour uttering threats and unkind words that all revolved around the ‘you pay – no I don’t’ concept. Seeing no way out of the deadlock, eventually, he also gave up and bitterly let us go.
The fourth and last time was in Pottuvil town, near Arugam Bay. This time I tried to find the golden balance between friendliness and aggression. Those cops were hard nuts, too. They were very determined to not let us drive away with their pockets empty. When they saw that, no matter how hard they try, I wasn’t going to pay them a penny, they came up with new tactics. They requested that I give them the scooter owner’s number. I gave it to them and they called him up. They demanded that he comes on the spot. Being a local and having every good reason for being afraid of them more than I was, he did drive there and, after some arguing, he paid them 1,000 LKR. Poor guy, I didn’t see that coming. If I knew, I would have simply insisted that I don’t have his number and they would surely let us go all the same in the end.
Accommodation and Activities in Sri Lanka
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