Author profile

Petr Shchepetin

Co-founder & lead author, IDP Companion

Cross-border driving documentation Geneva 1949 & Vienna 1968 Conventions 6+ years frontend engineering

About

I'm a co-founder and lead author of IDP Companion — a private multilingual translation companion document for drivers travelling on foreign licences. I write the country-pair guides on this site myself, fact-check them against primary government sources, and update them when laws or enforcement patterns shift.

My background is six-plus years of frontend engineering with a product-management bent. I built the IDP Companion product surface from scratch alongside my co-founder — landing site, application flow, OCR verification, payment integration, PDF generation pipeline — so every page on this domain reflects choices made by people who have personally tested the documentation against real rental-desk and police-stop scenarios.

Russian is my native language. I read and write English fluently and source-check Spanish-language Mexican and Costa Rican traffic regulations directly in Spanish. For destinations where I lack native-language access to primary sources (Greek, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian), every fact is triangulated against at least one English-language government translation plus one independent industry source.

What I cover on this site

Every country-pair guide answers four questions: is an IDP legally required, what does the destination's actual roadside enforcement look like, what does the rental-counter conversation involve, and what does IDP Companion specifically help with (versus what it does not).

Convention frameworks

Geneva 1949 vs Vienna 1968 IDP recognition by destination, with the specific countries where the wrong Convention is treated as no IDP at all (Vietnam being the most-cited).

Roadside enforcement reality

Specific fine schedules, checkpoint frequencies, ANPR-billed charges and post-trip card surprises — sourced from government regulators and verified against traveller forum reports.

Rental-desk conversations

Counter policy variance by chain and branch, peak-season turnover patterns at major airports, insurance gaps including credit-card exclusion territories (Ireland is the canonical case for US visitors).

Honest IDP Companion scope

Every page includes a binding “what IDP Companion is / is not / when it helps / what local law actually requires” block. We are not a government IDP, and our pages say so plainly.

Editorial principles

Verifiable specifics over universals. Every fine, deadline and regulation cited carries a number, date, and named source. “Fines can be steep” is not a sentence I publish.
Three source categories minimum. Every country-pair page cites at least three of: government regulator, academic/data publication, industry/trade source, traveller-reported incident.
Conservative on language claims. When the destination's native language is not physically present on the IDP Companion PDF template, the page reframes verification through English (the working language at every major tourist-area rental desk and police interaction). We never claim a translation language the template doesn't carry.
No fake authority. IDP Companion is a private translation companion, not a government-issued IDP under the 1949 Geneva or 1968 Vienna Convention. Every page legal block states this directly — we are not AAA, AATA, AA, RAC, PayPoint, РОСАВТОКЛУБ, ADAC or any other authorized issuer.
Pages get reviewed, not just published. Country-pair guides carry a “Last reviewed: Month YYYY” date that updates when laws, fines, or enforcement patterns change. If you spot a stale fact, email me.

Get in touch

Email questions, corrections or freelance enquiries via the contact page. I read every message; replies usually inside 48 hours.