Yay! I passed my driving test

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

At the ripe age of 26 years old, after more than 50 hours of driving lessons :rolleyes: I passed my driving test at the very first attempt. It was by no means flawless, I was told I changed gears too wildly and things like that, but I made no major mistakes, didn’t endanger anyone’s safety, let alone kill anyone. So the guy taking the test told me to get out of his sight before he changed his mind :slight_smile:

This is really good, because it means I can go on a road trip to France later this month without having my friends do all the driving. More importantly, due to my her poor health my mother can’t do a lot of driving, at a time when she needs to go to the hospital in Amsterdam a lot. So all of this burden is being carried by my dad - driving her to the hospital but also doing the things such as grocery shopping and the like that she used to do - and I’m glad I’ll be able to help out now.

2

Congratulations!

Why did you wait to get it; lack of interest, or no need, or no money? I don’t mean to pry, but I couldn’t wait to get my licence when I turned 16, and I’ve driven my car nearly every day since. I absolutely love driving! I was my sister’s chauffeur for a few years, though; that definitely contributed to me going to university 800km away from home!

Then again, my sister didn’t get her license until she was 20, due to a combination of health reasons and lack of interest. She’s also a nervous driver. And one of my aunts is not only a nervous driver (and therefore failed to complete driving lessons twice in her life) but is also a very nervous passenger.

Drive safe!

3

Yay!

I’ve only had my license a couple months myself (two months exactly as of tomorrow) and I’m a year younger than you.

It’s great isn’t it?

4

mnemosyne, it’s a different situation here in Europe. Mass transit is often enough for a lot of people. Just hire a cab on the few occasions that the bus or train isn’t convenient. You just don’t “need” a car like you do in America.

Owning a car is frequently more costly than in America, too. It’s not as easy to get a license here compared to America. The tests generally cost more and are much more thorough. Hell, in England, if you pass the test in an automatic shift car, you legally can’t drive a stick. There’s also the ancillary costs of owning a car; gas prices here are close to $10 a gallon and home parking’s often not included with rent and very expensive for off-street space that may be far away from home.

5

I can’t imagine learning to drive on a stick (I know, the vast majority of the world does it, but still). I learned on both automatic and stick, but my parents started me with the automatic and only gradually had me learn stick once I had the rest of the “driving” stuff down. Stick is hard, man, when you’re still trying to figure out which one’s the turn signal!

6

Congrats to you! I agree with the fact that learning on a stick is really tough. I’m pretty glad I did mine in stages as well, although there’s no way I’d go back to automatic at this point.

I also just passed my driving test. In Japan, all Americans who want to drive here after 1 year have pass the Japanese driving test in order to do it. And not only is it pedantic, it also lacks definite standards, so that you can be failed for no reason, or more accurately, for a made-up reason.

You have to drive along a set course, which needs to be memorized beforehand because the tester won’t talk to you during the test. And then there’s a whole slew of choreographed movements that need to be acted out with just so, because doing them with movements that are too big will make the tester think that you aren’t watching the road enough, and with too little movement makes her think that you’re not checking anything at all. Note that these movements are completely stupid, and would get you killed if you were to actually perform them while driving.

To make a turn you have to move over and hug the edge of the lane you’re in, in the direction you’re turning. But you can’t just hug the edge all the time, you have to move over to do it, and show the tester that you’re moving over. In order to have enough room to do this, you have to sometimes make wide turns, but you can also be failed for making wide turns.

On top of that, even though the test takes about 5 minutes total, the DMV only allows two (2) people to test per day. So when you fail, you might have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before there’s another slot open. Even worse is that there are absolutely no weekend spots, so if you have a job you have to take vacation time to do this. Plus, though there are many driving centers that are permitted to test and license Japanese people, foreigners can only test in certain locations, usually in capital cities.

Every time you go, it costs about $23. Plus you have to bring them a 3.5 X 2.4 cm headshot each time. You paste it to a form, and then they ostensibly file it I suppose, but more likely just throw it away.

It was the most kafkaesque situation I’d ever found myself in, and really made me question my existential priciples.

I finally passed on my fourth try, 5 days before the international license I’d been driving on for a year was set to expire.

I do like this country, honestly. It’s just really, really stupid here sometimes.

7

Around here, you don’t have much choice. Most cars are stick. Even when you rent a car in London, you’ll have a hard time gettting an automatic. It’s just different outside America.

8

This is fascinating! Can you be more specific?

Re: stick vs automatic, I learned in the '80s on a stick and it wasn’t that bad. I had a hard time transitioning to automatic, actually, because I kept thinking I was supposed to be doing something but I couldn’t figure out what, so I’d get all nervous that I was missing something critical. That, and I’d slam on the brake with my left foot because I was going for the nonexistant clutch. :smack:

Re: renting a car in England, I was surprised at how easily I was able to adapt to shifting with my left hand. I was really nervous about it until I tried it, and it turned out to be no big deal.

9

Congrats, Švejk!

I got my drivers licence after four exams, and at the ripe age of 27 as well. Seems like they make it harder and harder every year!

Like Caractacus Pott said, in Europe (and most certainly in the Netherlands) people can get by for 95 % on public transport and bicycles. In fact, the government actively discourages car-use for everyone. They even provide free public-transport for college students. When I was in college, nobody I knew even owned a car.

10

Congratulations! Enjoy your victory.

11

thanks everyone. I’m still gloating. As to why I didn’t get it until now: when I was eighteen I didn’t want it because I thought if I had a driver’s license I’d get lazy and drive places where I could bike or take public transport. I wanted to protect the environment against myself. I’ve gradually given up on that thought, but all the same there was no pressing need; The Hague is in the most urban areas of the Netherlands, public transport is really good around here and (as Maastricht pointed out, I believe) free for students on me. My student days are coming to an end in a few weeks, though, and while it’s expensive (around 40 euros for a lesson of an hour, plus a fee of nearly 200 euros for the exam and another 50 something euros for the theoretical exam), it’s not going to get less expensive so I thought I might as well bite the bullet. My parents helped me out, thankfully, otherwise I’d have postponed it some more, or at least have taken much longer. And it took four months as it is.

this is true. They focus on actually functioning in traffic and anticipation, rather than just following the instructions of the person taking the exam. So what they’ll do (come to think of it, they didn’t ask me that, actually) is tell you to drive to some familiar point in the vicinity, and just find out on your own how to do that. Also, the theoretical exam is much harder than it used to be, apparently. It’s broader, at least, because they also included questions on the environment and things like that.

12

I wish they’d make it harder to get a license here in the US. I’m 36, have had my license since I was 16. I have never taken an actual behind-the-wheel driving test. I have had to take a written (multiple choice) test in each of the four states I’ve had a license in, and have my eyesight and hearing checked, but that’s it. When I first got my license in Arizona, they waived the driving test if you’d taken a behind-the-wheel driving course. The course I took was like 3 days, 3 hours each, with 3 students in the car. So you had about an hour each time, three times. And that was it. And it was taught by my biology teacher.

The written test is crazy easy, too. The only questions I missed on the Ohio test I took earlier this year were two questions about the details of fines (what is the fine for driving drunk first offense, etc.) which I had no idea because I don’t do those things. The lady next to me failed the test. That’s scary.

13

So let’s take a left turn for example (remember that people drive on the left here). Before you can turn your signal on, you have to check in your sideview mirror, then look back at the road, then check your blindspot and look back at the road. Not a big deal, right? Well, after you turn your signal on, you then have to move your car into the leftmost portion of the lane, but only after you’ve repeated the mirror and blindspot checks. Then, as you’re making your turn, rather than looking at the road ahead of you, you have to be looking over your left shoulder in case someone decides to broadside you while you’re turning. Not that there would be anything you can do about it at that point.

So annoying, but not a hugely big deal until you realize that you can’t just check these spots, you have to make sure the tester knows that you’re checking them. So with real driving, if you were to actually do this for some crazy reason, you’d check your sideview by turning your head two inches and looking with your eyes. On the test, you have to turn your head a lot to make it really obvious. If you want to simulate what it’s like to do this, shake your head back and forth four times without looking at anything.

So yeah, I failed for things like not moving over enough in the lane before I made turns, signaling too late (the first time around, when I forgot the course and made a quick turn), and on one memorable occasion, for turning my body to look at my mirrors, when I should have just turned my neck. I feel like I was lucky passing on the fourth time. I have a friend who passed on the eighth.

Oh, and about the automatic thing, I always stomp on the brake when I get into an automatic again for the first time. They should put in a fake clutch just for people who drive standard. :slight_smile: