I Can Drive - July 2006

Since arriving in Taiwan, I have been driving occasionally. Most of this driving has been permitted due to my international driver's licence that I picked up before we arrived here. Unfortunately that only lasted a year and, since Canada does not recognize Taiwan driver's licences and Taiwan reciprocates that notion, I was forced to go through the driving test process.

I probably could have lived (literally and figuratively) without a driver's licence, but with all my bitter complaining about the state of driving in this country, I decided it best to do my own research and have my own experiences to support my rants. Of course, it would also be better if I could drive in an emergency and it would not hurt to tell my future employer that I could legally drive here.

Anting and I did some research and found some example exams for the written portion of the test. Fortunately, the test can be taken in English, so there were a few English sample exams on-line. The test is comprised of a multiple choice section, a true or false section, and a traffic sign identifying section. One of the problems with the materials I was reviewing was that the English was so terrible, it made it quite difficult to tell what the answer meant. Another difficulty, that I found out later, was that the on-line materials were location specific and if I had the materials from Taoyuan and I took the test in Taipei, my materials may not cover some of the questions from Taipei.

I did my best to plow through the materials and try to memorize the rules, though some of the questions had the lawyer in me wondering "what the...". For example: "You must be well dressed when driving (True or False)". I was thinking, "So, is there a law that says you must be well dressed when driving? I would think not; Should be 'false'. Then again, maybe it's not well dressed, but there is a certain minimum, like you have to wear underwear or shoes, and it's the translation that must be bad; Could be 'True'".

Like most things in Taiwan, taking the test is pretty convenient. There is no appointment needed and you just show up at the MV office with your application form and pictures and start lining up. The process goes pretty fast. You get your height and weight measured, they do a quick physical (you squat down and stand up), and then you get your eyes checked. Once those matters have been completed, it's on to the written test. Again line up and then get assigned to a computer terminal where the test is administered.

It was all quite straight forward and only took about an hour and a half from start to finish. Unfortunately, I made the day shorter than anticipated by failing the written test. Had I passed the test, I could move on to the driving test, but I got a score of 83 out of the 85 needed. I would like to blame the poor English on the exam for my failure, and there was one really bad question, but I rushed myself and did not re-read my answers. Had I done so, I would have corrected an obvious error and passed. Anyway, there are no bad consequences for failing, except I had to wait another week before I could re-write.

The following week, we again took a trip to the MV office. This time things were quicker as I had already done all the physical examinations. I took my time and was able to score a 96.

Passing the written test meant that I now moved onto the driving test. The motor vehicle office in Taipei is situated north of the city complete with a Disney style driving course. Instead of taking you out on a "real world" test, you drive around their back lot. After the excitement of having passed the written portion of the test died down a little, Anting and I asked if we could go look at the driving course before I took the test. During the lunch break we were permitted to go and look at the course. It appeared to be a fairly large oval track, with cross walks, train crossings, and traffic lights at various places around the track.

Inside the track, there were three other types of driving skill mini courses, "Backing into a narrow garage", "parallel parking" and "The 'S' curve". All of these mini challenges had tire sensors on the ground, marking the out of bounds (or lose 16 points) locations. Once your tire touched the sensor, an air raid siren and all sorts of flashing lights would make your error immediately known.

After walking the course, Anting and I headed off for lunch and I visualized how I was going to tackle the test. After lunch, I proceeded to take the test. One can only lose 30 points, before he or she must pack it in and drive back to the entrance. Each sensor hit is a loss of 16 points, so 2 strikes and you're out.

I got in the car and drove with the examiner to the mini skills course. My first challenge was to, in one attempt, back the car into a narrow pretend garage. As I backed up, I knew I had not turned soon enough and my back tire was about to hit the sensor. I stopped the car, knowing that I had failed this attempt. For some reason the examiner wanted to hear the siren and see the lights flashing so he urged me to continue. After hitting the sensor, he then had me attempt it again. This time I completed it successfully, but it meant the rest of the test was "sudden death" as the next sensor I hit would mean failing the test.

The next obstacle was parallel parking which was no problem, but following that was the dreaded s-curve. From what we had heard, this was the most difficult part of the test. It was, as aptly named, an s-curve. The examinee has to drive up the s-curve and over the line at the end and then reverse back down it, all without hitting the sensors on either side of the narrow lane. The driving gods were with me that day and I managed to get through the s-curve without a problem.

The remainder of the course was a piece of cake and just included stopping on a hill, stopping at a crosswalk, stopping at a railway crossing, driving in a straight line, and stopping at a traffic light.

We waited 20 minutes and then I was licenced to drive. It is now several months later and my curse word vocabulary has increased tremendously.