How I Got my Driver's License
"Common Knowledge"
In the USA you can get your drivers license early, depending on the state you can get a Lerner's Permit (you are allowed to drive but only with someone who already has a driver's license.) when you are 15 years old. Then after 1 year of learning to drive you can go for the real license, by age 16 you can have your drivers license.
To me this system represents part of a positive feedback in the American car culture. An over-reliance on cars creates severe movement restrictions on people don't or can't drive, this forces the system to allow people who shouldn't really be behind the wheel of a car onto the road, which in turn increases the number of cars on the road, while decreasing the number of non-car transportation users. This in turn causes an expansion of car and a decrease in non-car infrastructure.
The result of this accumulating mess is driver's licenses being handed out after some minuscule amounts of driving practice and driving tests that are the least representative tests of their subject I have ever seen.
And I Got Myself One :)
The preparation for getting the permit started with me reading the Handbook cover to cover during a summer road trip. I then put in ~2 hours of practice using a random app I found and easily passed the knowledge test. I there was also a course about alcohol (usual safety stuff) that I had to complete (some number of hours), there are simple online ones if that's something you need to do.
After doing nothing for a year and even renewing my driver's permit I started learning to drive with a driving instructor (12 hours total). The requirement was 50 hours, 10 of them after dusk. So for the next month I worked as a chauffeur for my family, most of the time was on the highways and roads. I did a mock exam with my instructor (and failed it after rolling a stop sign) 2 days before the real exam. Unfortunately for me the instructor's car was the size of a Smart, but my family car is a van, so the day after that I spend an hour parking and doing U-turns with my van.
And then the day of the test came, it was challenging from the moment it started: I had a Pre-calculus and History test that day, and walked out of the school really tired. Well, driving exam would be the hardest one that day, so I decided to do the 20min drive to the DMV as a warmup.
After struggling with navigating both the roads to and the desks inside the DMV (later was significantly harder), I finally was told I should go and wait for the examiner inside my car. So there I was, sitting in my car, really tired (official rules prohibit driving when tired or dead), thinking how I am going to screw up every little thing. And then the lady shows up, she looks like a zombie, speaks with an accent, and if she didn't have to read the paper in front of her she would have probably fallen asleep.
What's on the exam and some advice
You need 80+/100 points to pass. I actually recommend you check a "driving test dash cam" on YouTube to see what to expect.
- DMV handed me a flyer with all the "maneuvers" that could be on the exam.
For purposes of not breaking any rules I recommend not to optimize and stick hard to the rules until you pass your exam. Do not get yourself into bad habits, you will have a hard time pretending you don't have them.
- First a car safety check was performed (lights, turn signals, honk).
- Then I was told to drive around the DMV parking lot. There were quite a few stop signs but very little traffic. (Here I got -4 points for not noticing a car coming from the side.) You should exaggerate everything you do. Stop at the STOP signs and wait 4 instead of 3 seconds, and look around like you are in a museum. Check your mirrors all the time.
- Then (in the parking lot) I did (you can't use rear view camera):
- parking (into 4 cones) (you must check the back window as you are backing out of the lot),
- U-turn (without touching sides of the road or white lines),
- Quickstop (accelerate to 20mph, and stop smoothly in 2 seconds) (But for me it was 14mph for some reason.)
- Reverse using the windows on the back only (drive 50ft without looking in any front windows).
- Then I started driving out of the parking spaces in the back of the DMV towards what looked like a real road with traffic. There was a stop sign so I stopped and pretended to check for cars and pedestrians, there weren't any, but I had to wait anyway because there was a family of little ducks crossing the road.
- I thought I was finally going onto the main road. But when I was about to drive out the examiner told me I nearly missed a turn (and it was back into the parking lot).
- After parking in a random space and the examiner told me I passed with a 96.
I sat there for a while completely disappointed that I didn't go on the real roads so I couldn't show the skills I was busy practicing the past month...
I went inside to get my drivers license printed.
Conclusion
Pure disappointment:
I thought a drivers license was a confirmation of your skill, this is however not the case. As of right now, I feel like I am about 80% the way to being a "complete" driver, and I would refuse to drive without a person next to me, and this is from a person who passed with a 96. They are giving driver's licenses to people who not only shouldn't have them, but to people for themselves think they should have it.
Just imagine you were handed a nuclear briefcase by some high ranking general. Your response? Obviously "Sir, I don't think I am qualified to use/be in possession of this." You do not want to and shouldn't have it, it is dangerous in every way possible. And you know what the general does? He takes out a piece of paper, writes You are qualified, signs it and tells you to get lost. This is what the DMV did to me.
Now I have a drivers license. Great right?
Well... the cost of adding me to the insurance of our family car would have been +$100/month. I am not touching the wheel of a car any time soon. Me driving my bike to school for 20 minutes every day probably generates $100 in health and opportunity cost savings every month.
Also, I just finished reading Thinking Fast and Slow, and it included a fun fact about organ donations: You would think deciding whether to opt in or out would be an important decision right? Turns out not at all, for countries with fairly similar cultures the percentages of organ donors were like 90 and 10 percent. The reason is quite simple, in the 90% country the default option was to donate, in the 10% it was not. Only 10% of people choose to deviate from the default. As for me: I went for it, because I thought the heart looked cute.
I wish you a
Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Or Happy Holidays! if you don't celebrate Christmas.
- very qualified safe driver