Daniel Mercer

Daniel leads the country research behind every International Driving Permit guide on this site. He has spent the past six years documenting cross-border driving requirements — which destinations follow the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, which apply the 1968 Vienna Convention, and what that means in practice at a rental counter or a police checkpoint.

His work covers IDP requirements for car rental, motorcycle and scooter hire, roadside enforcement norms, and the licence-translation rules that apply when a national driving licence is not printed in the Roman alphabet. Every country guide he writes is checked against the convention texts (Article 24 of the 1949 Geneva Convention, Article 41 of the 1968 Vienna Convention), national road-traffic authority guidance, and the published licence policies of the major rental networks — Hertz, Enterprise, Sixt, Avis and Europcar.

Daniel personally maintains the requirement data behind our destination checker and reviews high-traffic country pages on a rolling schedule, so guidance for destinations like Italy, Japan, Thailand, Spain and Mexico reflects current rules rather than recycled folklore. He has driven on a foreign licence in 23 countries and has been refused at exactly one rental counter — the experience that started this site.

Editorial method

• Every requirement is checked against at least three sources: the convention texts, national road-traffic authority guidance, and published rental-network policies.
• Claims are conservative — where a rule varies by region or licence origin, the guide says so instead of overpromising.
• Each guide carries a visible 'Last reviewed' date; high-traffic destinations are re-reviewed on a rolling schedule.
• Corrections are welcome and fast: factual issues reported to support are reviewed within one business day.

The full standard — sourcing, review cadence and corrections — is published in our editorial policy.

Primary sources used

Recent guides

Spotted an error? Email support@internationaldriverlicence.org — factual corrections are reviewed within one business day.