2.1 Holding and Producing a Driver’s Licence

Why a driver’s licence is not optional

The Guyana Police Force Learner/Driver Theoretical Programme (April 2025) lists Information on Drivers Licences as subject two of the theory syllabus. The statute it extracts is the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, Cap. 51:02, Part V. This chapter is independent study of those provisions and of the matching pages in the GPF study package. It does not claim any official partnership with the Guyana Police Force or with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Part V opens with a rule that applies on every public road in Guyana, not only in Georgetown or on the Linden Highway. A person shall not drive a motor vehicle on a road unless that person is the holder of a driver’s licence. The same sentence catches the employer: a person shall not employ any person to drive a motor vehicle on a road unless the person employed is the holder of a driver’s licence. If either the driver or the employer breaks that rule, that person is guilty of an offence.

Hold a licence means you are the person named on a licence that is in force for the class of vehicle you are driving. Sitting in the driver’s seat and moving the vehicle on a road is driving. Lending the family car to a cousin who never sat the test, putting an unpaid helper on a goods run, or sending an unlicensed employee to collect a customer are all employer-side examples of the same offence. The Act does not require the police to prove that you knew the driver was unlicensed before you can be charged for employing them; the duty is not to employ an unlicensed driver.

The GPF booklet quotes this as section 23(1) of Part V. Remember the pairing: driver and employer are two separate ways to commit the offence. A paid chauffeur without a licence is an obvious case. So is a shop owner who lets an unlicensed nephew move the delivery van on the East Bank public road.

Two people, two duties

Producing the licence to a police constable

Holding a licence is not enough if you cannot show it. The GPF extract of section 23(2) says that any person driving a motor vehicle on a road, including any person who supervises that person while driving, shall, on being so required by a police constable, produce his licence for examination. The purpose is practical: the constable is entitled to ascertain the name and address of the holder, the date of issue, and the authority by which it was issued. Fail to produce, and that failure is itself an offence.

Three teaching points sit in that sentence.

First, the demand comes from a police constable, not from a random civilian, a security guard, or another motorist. On Guyana’s roads the Guyana Police Force is the body that stops traffic and checks documents.

Second, supervision is not a hiding place. A learner on a provisional licence will usually have a supervising driver. When a constable requires production, both people produce a licence: the learner produces the provisional licence, and the supervisor produces their own licence. The constable is checking who is in the vehicle and whether the person giving instruction is actually licensed.

Third, the constable is not browsing for fun. The statute lists the facts the examination is meant to reveal: who holds the licence, where they are recorded as living on the document, when it was issued, and which authority issued it. A Guyana licence issued through the licensing system, a document the holder claims is a Commonwealth licence used at grant, or any other authority printed on the face of the licence is what the constable is reading. You do not get to refuse because you find the stop inconvenient.

Do not confuse this duty with the five-day production rule that the Theoretical Programme quotes from the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risk) Act, Cap. 51:03. That later rule is about producing a certificate of insurance at a named police station. It is not a breathing space for a missing driver’s licence. If the constable requires the driver’s licence at the roadside and you cannot produce it, the Part V offence is already in view.

What the constable is allowed to read

• Name of the licence holder
• Address recorded for that holder
• Date of issue of the licence
• Authority by which the licence was issued

Declaring your present address

Section 23(3) in the GPF extract is a short, heavily tested follow-on. Any person producing a licence under the previous subsection shall, if requested to do so, declare his present address. If that person refuses, that person is guilty of an offence.

Present address means where you actually live now, not only the line printed when the licence was first issued. People move between Georgetown, Linden, Berbice, and the hinterland. The licence may still show a parent’s house. The constable is entitled to ask where you live today, and you are entitled to answer. Silence, a shrug, or “that is private” after a lawful request is a refusal.

The offence is the refusal, not an honest correction. If the printed address is stale, you still speak the current one. If you produce the licence but will not say where you live, you have completed the production duty and then committed the separate address offence.

A roadside pattern to remember

1. Constable requires production.
2. Driver (and supervisor, if any) hand over the licence or licences.
3. Constable reads name, recorded address, date of issue, and issuing authority.
4. Constable may ask for the present address.
5. Refusing that declaration is a further offence.

Keep the licence on you when you drive. The Guyana Road Traffic Code, in the pages that prepare a learner for the practical test, tells you to carry your licence always, and tells the person who supervises you to carry theirs as well. That Code advice matches the statute: a licence left at home cannot be produced on the East Coast or at a checkpoint near Timehri.

How the booklet and the Home Affairs Act PDF number the same rule

Candidates who open both official PDFs meet a numbering mismatch. Treat it as a study fact, not as two different laws.

The April 2025 Theoretical Programme heads this topic Part V, sections 23(1) to 29, and quotes the “shall not drive / shall not employ” rule as section 23. The Ministry of Home Affairs compilation of the Act (the Motor Vehicle and Road Act PDF) still uses section 23 for a different offence: using or keeping an unlicensed motor vehicle — that is a vehicle licence (revenue licence) problem, not a driver’s licence problem. In that PDF, the driver-licence hold-and-produce rule is printed as section 24, immediately under the Part V heading Licensing of drivers.

The substance is the same: hold a driver’s licence; do not employ an unlicensed driver; produce the licence to a constable; declare a present address. The exam package teaches those duties as section 23. This guide follows the GPF numbering for Part V because that is the numbering printed in the theoretical book, and it will flag the Home Affairs PDF’s offset when the two texts diverge on wording (especially duration, in section 2.3).

A later booklet paragraph states that a person not resident in Guyana may drive on a road for sixty days after entry without a Guyana driver’s licence under section 23(1), if that person holds a valid licence from the country of residence and documents that establish the date of entry. Ages for motorcycles, cars, lorries, and tractors sit in the booklet’s extract of section 33. Both topics belong in the next chapter. For this section, the rule you must be able to recite is the resident driver duty: licence in force, or you do not drive, and you do not send an unlicensed person to drive for you.