Starting today, motorists needing to renew their driver's licenses can do so at nearly all the 7-Eleven stores nationwide, the Directorate General of Highways (DGH) said yesterday.
DGH Director General James Chen (陳晉源) said for now the service is only available through the 7-Eleven store chain.
Other convenience store chains, including Hi-Life, Family Mart and OK Mart , may offer the same serviceif they install similar processing and imaging machines.
This measure does not apply to motorists holding professional driver's licenses or international driver's licenses, who still need to apply for license renewal at the local vehicle registration departments, he said.
This one-stop service will help shorten the processing time and motorists will be able to get their new driver's license within seven days, he said.
To renew drivers' licenses at the convenience stores, motorists need to first attach a photocopy of their identification cards, their old driver's licenses and a recent photograph on the application sheet.
The license renewal fee is NT$200 plus NT$25 for postage on a return envelope, NT$15 for processing fees and NT$15 for scanning fees.
The license renewal fee is NT$400 if the motorist needs to renew licenses for cars and scooters as well.
After payment, the application is scanned into the store's "ibon" machine, which is connected to all the vehicle registration departments in the nation.
Once the service is activated on the ibon machine, the application will then be sent to the department's database.
Chen said the nation now has 4,400 7-Eleven convenience stores equipped with ibon machines. Stores on outlying islands and at railway stations do not yet offer the service, he said.
He said that these machines will block the applications if they find that the motorist has unpaid fines or his driver's license has been canceled or revoked.
"They can use the service immediately once they pay those fines," Chen said.
Also, vehicle registration renewal can be handled at 7-Eleven stores with the ibon machines.
From August last year, motorists have been able to pay vehicle registration renewal fees at 7-Eleven and Hi-Life convenience stores.
However, after paying the fees, motorists had to send applications to the vehicle registration department via registered express mail from the post office, spending an additional NT$25 and with an additional NT$7 post office processing fee.
The vehicle registration department could not process those applications until they had received the application packets.
However, only 700 people handled their renewals at 7-Eleven stores since August.
Now this service can also be handled at ibon-equipped 7-Eleven stores for NT$255. The process is faster because there is no need to mail the applications.
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