How can I get licensed to drive through Mexico?

June 11, 2009 8:07 PM

I live in the central USA and am thinking about taking a trip to Mexico City in August to catch a world cup qualifier game. I was wondering how difficult it would be to get the proper licensing/what licensing would be required to drive there?
posted by mikeo2 to travel & transportation (21 comments total)

Your U.S. drivers license is fine in Mexico and you don't need any separate documentation, aside from a passport (which you're supposed to be carrying on your person anyway). The only catch is that you need separate insurance to drive in Mexico. In the event that you're driving from the states, you can pick it up stateside at any of the border towns. If you fly to Mexico and pick up a car rental there, I'm pretty sure the folks at the agency can get this for you.
posted by dhammond at 8:21 PM on June 11

Your regular U.S. Drivers' license will work just fine, you'll need Mexican insurance in addition to your U.S. insurance, though. I've used these folks in the past. Are they any good? Dunno. Never had to use 'em.
posted by Floydd at 8:24 PM on June 11

You have to have a passport.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:29 PM on June 11

Not quite an answer to your question, but I advise against driving in Mexico City. The traffic is murder and the drivers are agressive. Taxis are plentiful and cheap and the Metro is safe, cleam, costs 3 pesos and goes anywhere in the city you're likely to want to go.
posted by chrchr at 8:33 PM on June 11 [1 favorite]

There are also permits you need to get at the border if you're planning on driving that far into Mexico. A friend tells me there is also a $500 deposit you have to put down.
posted by lunalaguna at 8:57 PM on June 11

I literally can't even imagine where you would park in Mexico City. Valet at one of the expensive hotels?
posted by smackfu at 9:09 PM on June 11

I think the general wisdom is not to drive in or into Mexico, although I have done it. If there is an incident it becomes complicated. Right now there are so many cheap flights to everywhere, unless you were planning on bringing a huge family or something it would probably be cheaper, easier, faster and safer to just fly in.
posted by caddis at 9:26 PM on June 11

There is no such thing as an international drivers license. Most countries will accept a valid license from your home country--assuming you can make it through immigration, which requires a valid passport and, you know, not being on the outs with the government. But as far as Mexico is concerned, as long as you can cross the border without trouble, you can drive wherever you want.
posted by valkyryn at 9:33 PM on June 11 [1 favorite]

There are driving restrictions in Mexico City -- certain plate numbers are permitted to drive on certain days. A Google search will give you the details.
posted by Majorita at 9:39 PM on June 11

Chocolate Pickle: You have to have a passport.

To expand on this a little bit, go Chocolate Pickle: You have to have a passport.">here. In short:

If you're traveling by airplane, you'll need a passport.

If you're traveling by car or by boat, you'll need a passport or one of the new passport cards, which are a bit cheaper than full passports.

posted by koeselitz at 9:50 PM on June 11

ugh. comment redux:

Chocolate Pickle: You have to have a passport.

To expand on this a little bit, go here. In short:

If you're traveling by airplane, you'll need a passport.

If you're traveling by car or by boat, you'll need a passport or one of the new passport cards, which are a bit cheaper than full passports.

posted by koeselitz at 9:52 PM on June 11

I've rented and driven cars before in Mexico - mostly throughout central and southern parts, but never in the D.F. In general driving there was fine, though the Mexicans are fairly awful drivers owing to lax licensing requirements.

Honestly, I can't imagine driving a car I care about into that city - the traffic is amazingly vicious and I think figuring out parking would be its own nightmare.

Maybe you could locate secure long-term parking out side of the city and then just take a cab or bus?

As for cabs in the city, they are plentiful, but unless things have changed in the past five years or so they are still risky for whites to hail. It's better to have your hotel call one for you. Avoid the VW bug cabs - once you get in the back you can't get out if the driver decides to pickup a "friend" to help you empty your bank account at the ATM.
posted by wfrgms at 10:00 PM on June 11

I visit Mexico City regularly and recently went to a football (er, soccer) game at El Estadio Azteca. WOW...it is an amazing experience regardless of who's playing. I can't imagine how exciting another WC qualifying match will be. The noise in that place coming from over 100,000 fans just reverberates and reverberates and reverberates.

Agreed that a US license will do you just fine. But, based on your question, you don't sound like an experienced traveller. Mexico City is crowded, chaotic and rather dangerous for those who don't know how to blend in. The roads and the traffic just suck. Street taxis and metros aren't terribly safe for naive tourists without a spidey sense about them -- it's quite common to get mugged or pickpocketed. The crime isn't as bad as Fox news or CNN might suggest, but it ain't a walk in the park either.

If you can afford it, my advice is the same as smackfu's: book yourself into a better (i.e. expensive by local standards) hotel and hire a personal driver for the day to take you to the stadium and back. If your local travel agency doesn't have any leads, the concierge your hotel should be able to arrange it for you after you've arrived.

There is no such thing as an international drivers license.

Oh really?
posted by randomstriker at 10:19 PM on June 11

There are driving restrictions in Mexico City -- certain plate numbers are permitted to drive on certain days. A Google search will give you the details.

Recent cars can drive everyday, those are marked with a Zero sticker. I doubt a rental company would lease cars with driving restrictions.

Following randomstriker's comment, yeah, driving in Mexico City is a wild experience. There are public parking lots in most neighborhoods, but the roads and signals can be incredibly confusing.

You could get a taxi from a registered company, it's pretty easy to call them and to ask them to pick you up somewhere. I know a couple of companies I trust, Mefimail me if you want the information. Otherwise, ask your hotel's concierge to book you a safe taxi.
posted by clearlydemon at 12:11 AM on June 12

valkyryn: There is no such thing as an international drivers license.

randomstriker: Oh really?

Yes, really.

Read the link you linked to, guy.

The document is slightly larger than a standard passport and is essentially a multiple language translation of one's own existing driver's license, complete with photograph and vital statistics. It is not a license to operate a motor vehicle on its own.

Seriously, the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic was more than 40 years ago, and it's gotten less relevant ever since. You can get one of these “international driver's permits,” but since they're really just glorified translations of your original license anyhow they're really a very large waste of money. As long as someone can parse your US driver's license in the country you're visiting, you will almost invariably be allowed to drive.

This is not to mention the fact that the so-called “International Driver's Permit” is not valid in such countries as:

Chile

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Costa Rica

Ecuador

Ghana

Holy See

Indonesia

Japan

Mexico

Portugal

Republic of Korea

Spain

Thailand

United Kingdom

Venezuela

…and many others.

Take it from me: no one should waste their money on such a card. It's utterly useless; police in almost every other country are used to looking at licenses from other countries anyhow, and their laws furthermore accept licenses from other countries. The international “license” is no such thing.

More to the point, the international permit is not accepted at all in Mexico, and would therefore be pointless for the poster. The “international driver's permit” is really no such thing.
posted by koeselitz at 12:12 AM on June 12

There are also permits you need to get at the border if you're planning on driving that far into Mexico. A friend tells me there is also a $500 deposit you have to put down.

At the border you can either put down a cash deposit, or more conveniently and cheaper, a deposit on your credit card. The amount is based on the year and model of your car. You also need to have 2 copies of your car's title, car's registration, and if it is a lease/financed a letter stating it is cool with the bank for you be down there. Also, at the border, you need to buy a tourist card. As said above you need to get Mexican insurance.

You should also note you'll encounter many military checkpoints along the roads. Sometimes you're waived through, sometimes you have to stop and let the army guys check your vehicle for drugs/weapons. Sometimes they'll check more thoroughly than others.

Driving in Mexico is no big deal except when you get to Mexico City. The toll roads are in good condition but still have pretty low speed limits and the cops will run radar. The free roads can sometimes be in terrible shape so you'll want to drive somewhat slower to avoid giant dropoffs in the road, slower vehicles, or other obstacles.

Having a car in the DF is a pain in the ass. Traffic is terrible. There's good public transportation or taxis and no need for your own car.

If I were you I'd fly to Mexico City. Right now the flights are super cheap since the whole flu thing scared everyone away. When you fly you get your tourist card on the plane.

If you want to be more adventurous and see the country and have the time, consider going by bus. The bus lines in Mexico are about a million times better than the US's greyhound. There are buses leaving from the border towns to Mexico City often. Several can be direct with fewer stops (but it is still a long way!). There are ejecutivo or lujo class buses that have seats that fully recline and newer model Volvo or Mercedes buses for just a few bucks more than the first class buses. The second and other class buses are really cheap, but they are older buses and will have about 1,0000 stops, take the free highways instead of toll roads, and to me aren't worth the savings of a few bucks. Like if you drove, you need to get your own tourist card for traveling by bus into the interior. You can pick that up at the border, or before you leave from the Mexican consulate if your city has one.

And as said above, you'll need a passport to return to the US.
posted by birdherder at 3:39 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

What? Get the International Driver's License. Yes, it's not used alone, but presented together with your original license. Yeah, it's a translation, but a pretty official-looking translation with the geneva convention mentioned and with various seals and signatures. It's not like you'll be showing your orginal DL to some central governing agency-- each time you show it to someone you're banking on the hope that that individual will understand your license and then accept it as legit and trustworthy. Moreover, some people don't know that you can use your license in other countries. Koeselitz may technically be right, but do you want to be arguing technicalities to every single person or cop who wants to see ID? I've seen the International Driver's License work firsthand multiple times in the US, and don't for a second think that not having one would have been okay.

Even if the IDL isn't technically accepted in Mexico, some people may not know that and will only know that it's intelligible and legit. That's really what any form of ID or currency is supposed to offer- a sense of legitimacy and uniqueness bolstered by holograms and signatures and seals and stamps and watermarks, etc. Why not get this document designed precisely to function for this purpose?
posted by suedehead at 3:47 AM on June 12

Take it from me: no one should waste their money on such a card. It's utterly useless; police in almost every other country are used to looking at licenses from other countries anyhow, and their laws furthermore accept licenses from other countries. The international “license” is no such thing.

Uh...Fail. Maybe you haven't spent much time in Africa, though.

I bought one of these suspecting it to be a joke (even forgot the extra passport photos and had to pay AAA the extra $15 - doubling the price to $30). My company insisted I have one, though, and so I did.

That big, pink, stupid piece of folded card-stock has gotten me out of more police road-blocks, checkpoints, and pull-overs than I can count in the last 2 years. Its huge and has way too much information and looks big and official and is basically overwhelming to your run-of-the-mill 3rd-world police officer. It screams "I am a foreigner and oh hey my country probably has a big embassy here and its probably best for you to just go ahead and hand this back to me and go back to bothering your own countrymen."

Plus, I'm much more comfortable handing over that document than my actual driver's license (which, btw, I've learned never to let out of my hands). Losing the pink one means 15 minutes at AAA when I'm back in the US, losing my real one means all the associated joys of a day or two lost at a DMV.

Yes, its complete bullshit. But its also completely worth it if you're traveling abroad a good deal, as most developing-country law-enforcement don't yet read AskMe.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:18 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

The international driver's permit that I use got me out a jam as well. In Mexico.
posted by dhruva at 5:15 AM on June 12

I've had to show cops in Mexico my driver's license many times. Never once have they asked for an international driver's license. It might be necessary/helpful in other countries, but in Mexico it isn't necessary, they're right next door and have plenty of experience with US driver licenses. I'm not just talking about Reynosa or Tijuana cops. I've been as far south as the middle-of-nowhere town in Oaxaca. The cop sees my license and says "ah Tejas!" (A cop in Costa Rica saw I was from Texas and ask if I knew Chuck Norris!)

Hotels will sometimes ask for photo ID at check-in and your driver's license or passport (or now the passport card) will suffice. You don't need one to rent a car. Or at the km30 checkpoints.

But like my earlier post suggested, if you're wanting to see the country, do it by bus. A car is nice to have in the countryside but not essential. Having a car in Cd Mexico is about as useful as having one in Manhattan.
posted by birdherder at 8:16 AM on June 12 [1 favorite]

Driving down through Mexico can be done with only your US drivers license.

If you drive down you will need to get insurance in the US (a couple of years ago it ran $150 for a month or two). Any large border city will have billboards for insurers. Sanborn's Insurance is a famous one that has EXCELLENT guides. Download their information booklet for all the requirements that Mexico imposes.

You will have to spend 2-6 hours going through the process of putting your $500 deposit at the border as well. When you come back you have to return the sticker they put on your car or you forfeit your deposit.

In addition to gas, if you take the toll roads to Mexico City from Texas it will cost $200-$300 in tolls.

Mexico City is another thing altogether. Very confusing, high speed, few lane markers, traffic jams for hours. I have done it many times, but it is never fun. I prefer to let others drive if it is an option.

With prices now, I would be inclined to fly and get cabs in the city.
posted by SantosLHalper at 12:51 PM on June 12