paper driver

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese ペーパードライバー (pēpā doraibā), from English paper + driver.

Noun

paper driver (plural paper drivers)

(rare, usually non-native speakers' English) A person who has a driver's license but never drives.
- 1997 September 17, Mitch Sako, “NY TIMES: Japan's Economy Shrinks by 11.2% Annual Rate”, in soc.culture.japan.moderated, Usenet‎, retrieved 2022-05-23:
  But the average Japanese does not own a car (as an individual). I don't have the figures but someone told me that less than half of those of driving age do not own a car, moreso,^[sic] of those who do have a license, a relatively small percentage of those with licenses own their own car, many are paper drivers.
- 2002 February 17, Eric Takabayashi, “I'm going to New Jersey via Wisconsin to pick up some Snickers and Mars”, in fj.life.in-japan, Usenet‎, retrieved 2022-05-23:
  There are people who surely should not drive. "Paper drivers" and at risk drivers should be recertified.
- 2004, Ning Zhong, Setsuo Ohsuga, New Directions in Rough Sets, Data Mining, and Granular-Soft Computing‎, page 305:
  Variables appearing in KAUS clauses may be universally quantified or existentially quantified with type restrictions. For example, (1) Every boy likes a girl, (2) The age of John is 24 or 25, (3) If a person X does not have his own car, then X is not a car driver or X is a paper-driver, and (4) If each member Y of the students X who is a group interested in computer science learns a programming language are respectively expressed in KAUS as follows.
     (1).[AX/boy][EY/girl](like X Y).
     (2).(| (age john 24) (age john 25)).
     (3).[AX/person][ACar/car]
            (| (|~(carDirver X) (paper-driver X) ) (have X car)).
     (4).[AX/*student][AY/X][EL/programmingLanguage]
            (| (learn Y L)~(interestedGoroup  X computerScience)).

- 2005 March 23, harv, “Interesting road rule in Japan.”, in aus.cars, Usenet‎, retrieved 2022-05-23:
  There are courses aimed at "Paper Drivers" people who get their license but never use it, I know people that have had their license for over 7 Years and never driven except for the tests
- 2009, Kumiko Murata, Jennifer Jenkins, Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates‎, page 22:
  If a person in Japan identifies her/himself as a paper driver, no non-Japanese is likely to find the intelligibility of the term difficult at all, but probably most non-Japanese will have no idea of the comprehensibility or the interpretability of the term. Almost all non-Japanese need to be taught that a paper driver is one who holds a legal driver's license but does not consider her/himself competent as a driver and usually uses the license only as a means of identification when legally necessary.

Translations

person who has a driver's license but never drives

Japanese: ペーパードライバー (pēpā doraibā)