The international driving permit

A motorist crossing a frontier between the wars carried, besides the passport, an international driving permit: a small carnet of twelve pages, ten centimetres by fifteen, issued by the authority of his country or by the automobile club it empowered, and good for one year in every state bound by the Paris convention of 24 April 1926. That convention bound its first states on 24 October 1930; before it the convention of 1909 and its own certificate applied, which covered the car as well as the driver. Bearer offers that certificate for the years before October 1930, printed off the model annexed to the convention of 1909.

Page 1 names the country and the office that issued it; page 2 says where it is good and lists the states; page 3 carries the photograph and five particulars of the driver; page 5 gives them again in another language; pages 4, 6, 8 and 10 keep two blocks each where a state that withdrew the right to drive on its territory wrote so, and why; page 11 names the three categories and page 12 carries the office's seal in each one the permit covers. The particulars are always written in Latin letters.

Bearer makes an investigator's papers for Call of Cthulhu and any 1920s or 1930s tabletop campaign: the passport a consul would have filled in, with the visas and frontier stamps a campaign leaves in it, and the permits, certificates and tickets of the period, to print or to share.

An example

Open this example in the office

What each page carries

The states bound, and from when

A state is bound one year after its ratification or accession reached Paris (art. 14), unless its notice gives another day. The list is the one the League of Nations registered to 1938; a state not in it was not bound: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and Egypt among them.

The same paper elsewhere

• Driving permits by country

Still to be confirmed

• Annex B asks for one inside sheet in the language of each other contracting State; Bearer prints one, in the other language of the pass. What would settle it: a certificate issued under the convention of 1909, with all its sheets.
• the list of the contracting States is left for the office to write, as the model leaves it. What would settle it: the ratifications and accessions to the convention of 1909, year by year.
• the size of the booklet. What would settle it: a certificate measured.

Sources

• League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. CVIII, no. 2505, pp. 123-161 (French official text; English translation of His Britannic Majesty's Foreign Office), International Convention relative to Motor Traffic, signed at Paris, April 24th, 1926, with its annexes, art. 6: nobody may drive in international traffic without an authorisation, never under eighteen; art. 7: the international driving permit, valid one year from its issue for the categories it names (A, motor vehicles of not more than 3,500 kg laden; B, above; C, motor-cycles with or without side-car), its handwritten particulars always in Latin characters, issued by an authority or by an association it empowers with its visa, recognised in every contracting state without a new test; art. 14: the convention binds each state one year after its ratification or accession reaches Paris. Annex D: the permit is drawn up in the issuing state's own language. Annex E, the model, 10 by 15 cm: page 1 (name of country, International Motor Traffic, INTERNATIONAL DRIVING PERMIT, International Convention of April 24, 1926, Issue of Permit: issued at, date, seal and signature of the authority or of the association empowered by it and visa of the latter), page 2 (valid for one year in the territory of all the contracting states listed, for the categories on page 12; list of contracting states; the holder still bound by the laws on residence and on the exercise of a profession), page 3 (particulars concerning the driver: photograph under the seal, surname, other names, place of birth, date of birth, home address), pages 4 and 6 (two blocks each: Exclusion, M. … authorised as above by the authority of … is deprived of the right to drive in … by reason of …, place, date, seal, signature), page 5 (the particulars again, translated; the photograph see page 3; "pages 5 and 6 should repeat the particulars given on p. 3 translated into as many languages as may be necessary"), page 11 (the three categories, "in all languages"), page 12 (a box per category for the authority's seal, and the particulars numbered 1 to 5). (read directly)
• League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. CVIII p. 123, CLVI p. 221, CLX p. 376, CLXIV p. 387, CLXXVII p. 406, CLXXXI p. 390, International Convention relative to Motor Traffic: ratifications and accessions registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series, the first deposit of ratifications at Paris on 24 October 1929 and every ratification and accession notified after it, to May 1938; the chain of footnotes from one notice to the next shows none is missing up to vol. CLXXXI (read directly)

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