In Training for a German Driver's License

by Kathy

March 18:
I am taking driving lessons here. Everyone has to go to driving school to get a German license, unless you somehow exchange a US State license for a German one in the first 6 months you're here (how easy it is depends on the State). So I have waited so long that my NYS license is not valid over here anymore, and I have to start from scratch. And it's a good thing, too! Driving over here is very complicated! Everybody else has the right of way - bikes, pedestrians... Don't get me started! So many regulations and signs to pay attention to, you can't imagine it if you've never been here. Started classroom instruction:14 hour-and-half classes required.

Being in a classroom with a bunch of German kids was an experience. The people taking the driving instruction are all around 18 years old. Some few are adults, but most are kids. The kids come in, slouch into a chair and take out a smart phone and start playing with it, or they stare into space. The instructor starts class by holding his cell phone up and saying, "The only phone that should be turned on is mine!" Then instruction starts, with all the kids sitting silently and looking blank. I am the only one with a notebook, writing things down! Wonder how all those kids think that they're going to pass the written test if they don't make a point of learning the stuff. A CD comes with the course; on it are all the questions that can be on the test, separated by topics and available in several languages. I made a point of taking the tests on the CD every day, but I still needed to have things explained, so I asked questions in class (If the car has a certain weight, and can pull a certain weight, what is the allowable weight of the trailer?). These kids sat there like lumps even when the instructor asked questions to get some participation out of them. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes there were people in the classes with other types of licenses (car) who wanted to add another type (motorcycle) to their list. They usually provided answers. It was sometimes hard for me to express myself succinctly in German (they have a different word for everything!), but I tried.

June 11:
Started actual driving lessons (in German). The driving school uses 4-door BMW 1's, which are powerful and easy to speed in, but have a horrible turning radius. I realized that the last car we bought was a VW Jetta in 1997 - that's 16 years ago! The modern German car has more lights than you can shake a stick at! Headlights: high beams and low beams; hazard lights; signal lights for turning; parking lights (new to me); daytime running lights - so far all the usual, but there is a special light called the rear fog light. You turn this one on only in foggy conditions where the visibility is 50 m or less. It's only on the rear of the car and is so bright that it can hypnotize the driver behind you and therefore its use is restricted. Once when I saw the driving school car backing up, I noticed that one backup light was out. I told the instructor this and he said, "It only has one back up light, the other is the rear fog light." As we say in Germany, "Again what learned!"

Tuesday, July 16:
Today I took the written part of the driving test and passed with no mistakes! Didn't even make a careless mistake! And I was lucky that there weren't any stupid trailer questions.

One step closer to endangering the bicyclists on the street on my own!

Thursday, August 1:

Today, at around 4 pm, the driving test ended when, after 40 minutes' driving, I parked in an industrial area in a town nearby Erlangen. My driving teacher was in the front passenger seat and the driver's license examiner sat in the back seat. He said, " You get a driver's license from me, but first I have to take you to task for three things."  (The Germans have a saying - if you haven't been reprimanded, that's praise enough). So I said politely, "Please, I would like to hear it." The three things were:

1. I exceeded the speed limit by driving 60 kph (36mph) in a 50 kph (30 mph) zone....

2. I did not drive in the extreme right hand lane when I should have, although free choice of lane is allowed inside city limits, so it was not wrong...

and

3. I made a move to the left in a street (where there were no lane markings and I did not cross into the oncoming lane) without  first looking and signaling. "Both your driving instructor and I gasped at the same time, that could have been very dangerous. You're lucky it was a time of the day when the traffic is calm."

Otherwise, he said, I have a calm driving style and did some things characteristic of an experienced driver. Did I have a driver's license in the US?

Then he had to go on to a motorcycle license test near where we stopped.

So, the story from my point of view: Very early in the test we went into a side street where I had to parallel park behind a car. That was successful, thanks to much practice with the driving teacher. Very proud of myself! I managed not to drive into any pedestrians or bike-riders, who always have the right of way if they're going straight and I'm turning. As for item 1, above, stuff happens! It is hard to sense the speed in the driving-school BMWs because they are so smooth and have a lot of power in 3rd gear. So I was trying to keep to the speed limit, but at the slightest incline, it's easy to exceed the exact speed limit. I recognized the problem and corrected it! So sue me!  Otherwise, exceeding the speed limit by 10kph during the driving test would be an automatic fail.

The emergency braking went well. That's where, from 18mph, you suddenly put the brakes on as hard as you can. I actually heard the tires skid  - a good sign. I also managed to remember to align myself to the appropriate side when turning out of a one-way street.

As for no. 2, OK, it's something to keep in mind in general; I'm still learning all the rules, and though I have been taught this one before, I can't remember everything all the time!

As for no. 3, OK, I could have done better. But there were no lane markings on the street, and at the time it did not seem like I was making a large move. I was trying not to drive into the bus lane on the extreme right side of the street. The examiner had also just previously said suddenly, " No, let's turn right instead," which meant that I had not been looking ahead into the street we ended up turning into. So, OK. Something to learn from.

On the way back to town, before the driving teacher dropped me off, he congratulated me and said that if he weren't going on vacation at the end of the week, it would have been good to have had another week or two of practice. He also said that any time after getting my license I could call the driving school and ask for a couple of hours practice where I thought I needed it.

So all in all I got lucky and didn't make any life-threatening mistakes. However, in general, it was not a good day for driving tests. While I was waiting for my test, I saw at least 3 potential young drivers get out of the test car in tears because they hadn't passed. The fourth one, a young man (probably 18), got out of the car with a white piece of paper, which I assumed meant he passed. My teacher's two test candidates of the morning hours both failed, which did not surprise him. One was a 40-year-old woman on her fifth attempt at the test. The candidate before me, who also had my teacher, came back within 15 minutes because he had failed to stop at a red light before turning left. (My instructor, "It's a good thing there are no guns in Germany!")

When I got back to my neighborhood, the neighbor, Susanne, was outside. I told her that I had passed and she gave me a hug, went into the house, and came out with a bunch of sunflowers! She figured that either congratulations would be in order, or consolation. She is so thoughtful and generous!

It is a big relief to have that over with! I would celebrate by going out to dinner with Richard, but my last yoga class of the summer is tonight and I don't want to miss it. I missed the one last week because of driving practice. I will have to buy the beers tomorrow if the usual Friday afternoon club of Richard's coworkers meets at the beer garden. We will celebrate with a Japanese dinner on Saturday.

Not a Cheap Proposition

My costs       €1332 for the driving school (Instruction, CD, driving hours and fees)

                       €106 in test fees (to the DMV equivalent)

                       €  22 for first aid course and vision test

                       €  43 in fees to City Hall

----------------------------------------------------

  Total          €1503 = $ 1954

The driving school costs are usually higher for first-time drivers who have to do a lot of hours of practice.

Total number of driving "hours" (1 "hour" is 45 minutes long):

14 hours normal practice (quantity can vary according to the learner)
5 hours in the countryside (all required)
4 hours on the Autobahn (all required)
3 hours of night driving (all required)

My license is subject to a trial period of 2 years. If I screw up in that time, I could lose it and be required to take remedial courses. In cases of extreme misbehavior (drugs, repeated traffic violations) medical and psychological test can be required before you get your license back.

Traffic violations can earn you "points in Flensburg", where the central registry of traffic violations is located. Certain types of violations are "rewarded" by a certain number of points that go on your permanent record there. If you accumulate 8 points, you're done - your license is taken away.

I like to take the cards out of my wallet one at a time, saying: with the department store card I can earn points, the pharmacy card earns me points, and I can get points on my driver's license, too!

Random Thoughts

Having a German driver's license in Europe is like having a New York State license in the States. I can drive all over Europe with it. They are trying to come up with an EU license, which will probably complicate things a lot. The EU regulations have already complicated the required topics in each country for the different license classes. The German regulations for pulling a small trailer with a car have already been affected by EU regulations.

Up until this year, your German license was yours for life! No renewals necessary - no new pictures, no vision tests. Our friends have the licenses they got when they were 18 and it's pretty funny to see when they had hair, and the hairstyles from the 80's immortalized on their licenses. But as of 2033, everybody has to have their license renewed. Another consequence of EU regulations. It's not yet been decided what will be required for renewal. As a new license, mine is good for 15 years, until 2028.

They Make It So Complicated!

Here in Germany there are a lot of rules on the Autobahn, including absolutely NO passing on the right! That means if you're in the right lane and the lane to the left of you slows down, you have to slow down as well so as not to pass them. It is very important that the people to your left can always get back into the lane to their right. It is a requirement to drive in the right-most lane except when passing. In some places on the Autobahn there are no speed limits (recommended speed = 78mph!), so that there must always be an opportunity to change to the right lane if somebody comes up behind you doing 100mph or more! And they do.

In the US, there are far fewer traffic signs compared to Germany's 643 distinct signs (honest! see this link: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildtafel_der_Verkehrszeichen_in_Deutschland), but even so, in the US, the speed you should drive on the exit ramp coming off the Interstate is marked so it can be seen when you enter the exit lane. Here, you're just supposed to "know" that when you're at a cloverleaf intersection that the first exit is the gradual quarter-circle ramp on which you only slow down to 50 mph (80kph), but there are NO signs indicating this until you get around the bend. In my case, I once slowed to around 35 mph, because I didn't know what was coming, and created a dangerous situation, because everybody else exiting behind me "knew" that this was an 80kph exit!

There are a LOT of things that you're just supposed to "know". When you enter a town and see the sign with the town's name on it, that means that before the sign, you must already be doing 50kph (30 mph), and continue to until you see a sign with a different speed limit on it, or until you turn into a residential area and see that it's a 30 kph (18mph) zone (look carefully for the speed limit signs at the same time you are looking out for pedestrians and bike riders crossing your path). Then, look out for the side streets on your right! Unless the intersection is otherwise marked, people coming out of these streets  have the right of way! It doesn't matter that you're driving straight on a relatively wide street, and that they have to turn on to the street you're on, they have the right of way. Very scary! Sometimes it is not possible to see these streets if a big truck is parked in front of the intersection, or foliage obstructs your view of the signs.

When you exit a town, the sign saying "Leaving Podunk" will most likely be on the left side of the road, behind the sign saying that you are entering the town's boundaries (saving on traffic signs, you see...). When you leave the town limits, the 30mph speed limit is lifted, and depending on the road, you can drive 60 mph. Until the next town, which is usually within 3 km (2miles) and then you have to slow down again.

Very Well Regulated System 

My driving instructor said that the young first-time drivers are trying to do everything at once and so do not have a calm driving style :-). 18-year-olds can get a license and drive on their own, and it's also possible for 17-year-olds to get a license that requires that, for the first year, they be accompanied by licensed driver who is over a certain age and has had a clean license for a certain number of years. It has been found that these kids end up driving more safely. There is no just hopping in the car with mom or dad and driving around. There is no learner's permit. To get a license you have to go through a driving school.

Again what learned! (Wieder was gelernt!)

Now you know more than you ever wanted to about the German license! It has been quite an education for me, and I still don't feel comfortable driving around on my own! Even though I have at least 20 years' experience driving in the States!

And no, we are not planning on getting our own car.

Happy driving!