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My international permit expired last month, and I had to get a Japanese drivers' license. However, they told me when I went that if I wanted to ride motorcycles, I would have to come to the test center AFTER passing the car license test, and at that time I could take the motorcycle test. So what did the car test entail?

The Car License

Getting a Japanese drivers' license sucks.

The whole system is set up basically as a giant extortion ring. The expected way of doing things is to enroll in a driving school (about US$2500 total), during which time they teach you all the retarded little rules you should follow on the course, but which will get you killed on the street. For example: they teach their students to come to a near-standstill before making a left turn (being Japan, this is not across traffic, mind you). In the United States, that kind of absurd behavior will quickly get you rear-ended, and most likely fined for obstructing traffic. Of course, you can go to the test center and take the test by yourself, but without the benefit of *ahem* "official help", you'll probably have to take the test three or four times before you even finish without them failing you right off the bat. Though the driving schools are open on weekends, test centers aren't, which means you get to take vacation time from work! Yay! Did I mention the municipal test center is located well outside the city and isn't served well by buses? The whole system is basically set up to all but force people into these overpriced driving schools.

Screw that, I've been driving for 8 years, and I've logged more miles than most Japanese people drive in half a lifetime. I didn't want to pay all that extortion money, so I bit the bullet and took the hard way.

As it turns out, I couldn't do it in just one visit. No, I had to take TWO days off work.

To even apply for the car license I had to get an official translation of my original license from JAF (the Japanese version of AAA). I had to bring this translation to the driving center between 9:00am and 9:30am on a weekday (when the moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter was aligned with Mars), along with the original U.S. license, my international permit, foreigner registration card, passport, and application photo. They gave me a form to fill out; they wanted to know every entry and exit date and location from my passport, copied out into some blanks. For me, this took quite some time. They asked me a metric buttload of questions in Japanese: Have you ever been in an accident in Japan? How long ago did you get your license in your home country? How many questions were on the test? What is the pass percentage for the test? (Note: if you're reading this and you don't know, lie. They don't care about the answer, but the guy needs to fill in the blank on the paper.) Did you take a road test? Are you a dangerous driver? Have you ever killed a busload of nuns? Do you speed? What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? Et cetera.

They then pasted my photo onto the application, and led me out to wait some more. Then I took an eye test, which thankfully, instead of asking me to read Japanese, just asked me to identify whether the little Pac-Man was facing up, down, left, or right. I passed with flying colors. At this point, had I been any nationality but American, they would have given me my license right there, but Japanese lawmakers are a bunch of goddamn pricks.

After about 30 minutes, they asked me to take a 10 question true or false "test", which they said would be in English. Oh, fantastic, this can't be too hard. I open up the test booklet and the first "question" I see reads: "Having no garage, you park your car every day on the roadside." Huh? This is a question? The rest of the booklet was filled with similarly awful Engrish. Luckily for me, the original Japanese was also there, so I was able to pass, with a bit more effort than I had expected. It took them another half hour to grade the thing, after which they brought me in and said, "Congratulations, you passed. Now you need to book your road test."

"I can't take it today?" I inquired. (It was about 11am by that point.)

"No, you have to make a reservation and come back another day." Fantastic. Japanese convenience at its finest.

So I booked a reservation for the next week. Did I mention that because of laziness on the part of my supervisor, that my international permit was supposed to expire the next day? Though it might not seem like a big offense, driving on an expired international permit in Japan can get you a $3000 fine and a month in prison. The police see it as you driving without a license, and even if you've got major language skills to convince them you're not a road terrorist, you're gonna be in deep. Not a good thing.

On day 2, I came in full of vim and vigor, ready to fail the exam on the first try, like most Japanese people. (The pass rate for first-timers is 30%, mainly because of all the stupid little rules.) Instead, I got to wait for about 2 hours before even taking the test. Then I got to pay some money for the application fee. Then I got to pay some MORE money for the car rental fee. But I finally got outside to take the test, right after lunch. The tester drove us around the course once to orient us, and then the testing started. I was the first one up.

You start out with 100 points, and you need 70 points to pass. Unfortunately, there's no guide anywhere that says how many points are taken off per infraction, and most examiners will happily tick off X points each time you break the same little rule, you damn foreigner. In my case, I don't even know how many points I had at the end, or even whether I had passed. But I guess this leaves you free to worry about driving and not how many points you have left.

I know there are a couple guides out there, but they change the course every couple weeks, and every driving course is different. Don't count on a guide online to tell you where you need to turn, because I guarantee it will be wrong. However, there are a few good guides out there. Actually, that one I linked to is really good. Here are some other general pointers on how to pass the Japanese license test for a car.

Preparation:

• Check your appearance. Wear decent shoes, and avoid T-shirts and shorts. Don't chew gum, The examiner's first impression of you will be your appearance, so make it good.
• Have the right attitude. Be serious, but calm and collected. This goes with appearance, but you need to look like you're paying attention and are ready for anything while at the same time showing a bit of reserved confidence. When the examiner rails on you for making "mistakes" at the end of the test, roll over and take it. If you talk back, he'll fail you out of spite.
• Know some Japanese. The examiner most likely won't speak any English. You MUST know the words for "left", "right", and the numbers at least through twenty, so that the examiner can direct you (intersections are marked with numbered signposts). You need to know that this means stop and not yield.
• Treat the driving course like a real street. Use your imagination, and drive as if there were imaginary cars and bicycles and scooters and motorcycles and pedestrians. For example, although there may not be other cars on the course, you can't change lanes on a real street without looking because there might be another vehicle there.

Starting the test (this is the easiest place to lose points, as there are many stupid rules):

• Before getting in the car, inspect all four sides and check underneath. Look at the tires, and look under the car to make sure a shrubbery hasn't spontaneously grown out of the pavement.
• Before you open the door, look back down the street to make sure a bicyclist or scooter isn't zooming up on you.
• After you get in, you must do the following: LOCK the door, ADJUST your seat, ADJUST all 3 mirrors (if they're properly adjusted, make a show of pointing at them to show you've checked), and BUCKLE your seatbelt.
• When starting the engine, the rules are a bit different for automatic and manual transmission. For automatic, your left foot should never touch the pedals; leave the car in park, make sure the parking brake is set, put your right foot on the brake, keep your left hand on the wheel, and turn the key. For manual, push in the clutch with your left foot and brake with your right, make sure the parking brake is set, wiggle the shifter to make sure the car is in neutral, put your left hand on the wheel, turn the key, and once the engine is started take your foot off the clutch (but keep your right foot on the brake of course).
• When the examiner indicates it's OK to proceed, put your turn signal on, disengage the parking brake, and put the car in gear. Check your side view mirror, look over your shoulder, look forward, and pull out. Cancel your signal.
• The examiner may have asked you to do a quick warmup loop. If this is the case, you can't lose points here. Use the time to check the acceleration, braking, and handling of the test car (which generally tends to be weak on all three points).

General important stuff:

• They drive on the left side of the road here. Remember that. If the road doesn't have a divider line, you still need to stay to the left.
• You must come to a complete stop at the following (or fail): stop signs, red traffic signals, and railroad crossings. Unlike in the United States, you are NOT allowed to make any turns from a red light after stopping. Also unlike the U.S., you MUST stop at railroad crossings, whether or not they have drop bars. When coming to a railroad crossing, stop completely and roll your window down a crack to listen for imaginary trains. You do not have to come to a complete stop at unmarked T-junctions, though it's not a bad idea and they won't penalize you for it.
• Make sure that when you stop, you come to a complete stop. Your front bumper should be just behind the line. If you stop too soon, roll forward a bit and stop again where you're supposed to. Remain stopped for a second or two. Check your mirrors and over your shoulder before proceeding.
• Use turn signals BEFORE turning or changing lanes. To all you idiots who fail on this point, it's a good idea to do this in real life too.
• Turn your head around like crazy before changing lanes, before pulling into traffic, before starting after stopping. Make it obvious you're doing so.
• At one point, you will have to avoid a car stopped in the road. Signal when you move to the right to avoid it, and signal the other way when you move back.
• Remain within 1 meter (3 feet) of the left curb when in the left lane. Before turning left, check your mirrors and squeeze in close to the left side of the road; this is supposed to discourage bicycles and scooters from zipping in while you're turning and cratering on your passenger side door.
• When maneuvering within rows of suspended metal poles (you'll know it when you see it), don't collide with the poles or you fail immediately. If you have to back up to make a turn, you'll lose a few points, but if it's a choice between that and a collision then make the obvious choice. Use the same path as in a race car: outside-inside-outside.
• At one point in the test, the examiner will want you to accelerate to some speed, usually above 40km/h. If you don't reach that speed, you fail. But if you go over 50km/h you'll also fail. During all other parts of the test, you can pretty much go as slow as you want. But don't hit any imaginary bicycles.
• The examiner may scribble furiously on his board like he's docking you points. He's not. He's trying to distract you. Ignore him, unless he gives you directions.
• If driving a manual transmission, don't ride the clutch. Keep your foot off the clutch pedal except when shifting gears or to keep from stalling at low speed. When braking to a stop, wait until the last minute to push in the clutch; this lets you use engine braking to maintain better control.

Things that will fail you immediately:

• Not coming to a full stop when and where you're supposed to
• Speeding over 50km/h
• Colliding with anything (including curbs, those dangling metal poles, other cars)
• Running off course
• Reckless behavior (driving on the wrong side of the road, swerving, sudden braking, etc)
• Not following the examiner's directions (like I said, you need to know some Japanese)

The Aftermath:

When you're done, pull up flush with the curb in the stopping area. Stop the car so the front bumper lines up with the marker (a pole or cone), put the car in park (neutral for manual transmission), engage the parking brake, and kill the engine with your foot still on the brake. Don't hit the curb, or all that testing will be for nothing (instant fail).

If all went well, your examiner will sit scribbling on a paper and then proceed to chew you out for some minor retarded mistake before leaving you in the car without telling you if you passed. If all went really well, your examiner will scribble on a piece of paper, make a "hmphh" noise, get out, and leave you in the car without telling you if you passed.

In either case, it means you probably passed, so congratulations. If he told you that you failed, you get to come back and do the happy test dance again, just like Groundhog Day. Otherwise, hurry up, get your butt back into the testing center building and wait another 2 hours. When it's 5pm and they've forgotten to call your name and you go back to politely remind them that you've been waiting, they'll call your name and take a photo. Wait, didn't I submit a photo before? Oh no, that was the photo for the application. This is the photo for the license. Fine, I'm not going to bother asking WHY I needed an application photo, let's just get this damn thing over with. Try to hide the fact that you're tired and pissed off while they take the one photo, because you'll be stuck with it for at least 2 years.

Next week: How to pass the oogata ("big size") motorcycle test in Japan, you rebel you.