Teen driving licence confusion...?

[busymum17]

This is quite a specific problem so I'm not sure if anyone will know but:
We live in Australia where one can start leaning to drive at age 16 but must use L plates.
After having L plates for a year and driving a certain number of hours you can progress to P plates.
DD is on her P's however this doesn't exist in the UK (as far as we know?).
We are wondering how her Australian P's will transfer to a UK drivers licence when we move - will she have to have a UK provisional licence for another year?
Any thoughts?

Driving licence here works in a totally different way.
It's a very stringent 2 part test.
link to government site
www.gov.uk/browse/driving/driving-licences

I would say contact DVLA because of the complexity of the Australian license.
www.gov.uk/contact-the-dvla

I think if she has her P's, she can drive in the UK on those for a year, but after that, she'll need to get a UK provisional license and drive supervised by an adult (over age 21, who has held a full UK license for three years) until she passes her UK driving test.

I think non-European licenses are only valid here for a year (to give the driver a chance to get their UK license) but after that she has to get her UK license or she can't drive.

She will probably have to have a provisional licence but there is no time limit, she can take her tests as soon as she has them as long as she is 17.

If she gets a full Australian licence she can exchange it.

However the P plate rules vary between states so it might be more complicated. As I understand it some states you have to take a test to get P plates and others you don't.

If she has taken a test she may be able to transfer her licence for a full UK one - we don't have graduated tests for cars, you pass both tests and you can drive any car, no different speed restrictions or alcohol restrictions apart from the legal ones.

So she may get a full UK licence but have to wait until she is 17 to actually drive.

Alternatively check which licences she can transfer her Australian one for and see if there is one that can be transferred to the UK.

Eg a Malaysian friend could only drive for a year on his Malaysian licence, but he could swap it for a Hong Kong (I htink, it might be Singapore) licence, once he had his Hong Kong licence he could transfer that for a full UK licence.