Five Turtles In One Shell

Finally! After 5 months of waiting since the time I booked a driving test, the wait is over, and I’ve just completed it. No reason in building any suspense – I passed!

Boy oh boy was I anxious about the test! Over the last week I’ve been increasingly worried – not really consciously, but subconsciously it appears I was. My body and heart rate gave it away. Worried that I would fail, and then would have to wait another 5 months to take another, all the while not being able to drive without an approved companion (someone who has held their Irish license for 2+ years).

Preparing for the Test

I had taken a few other “maintenance” lessons and another mock test last week, and those refreshed my skills. The mock test was disappointing though – I failed by more than twice the maximum number of marks you can get and still pass! This did not help my anxiety, though my instructor gave me good pointers. We did a pre-test lesson as well, just an hour before the test. I would recommend this to anybody – especially if they’re hiring the instructor’s car to take the test in. It settles the nerves a bit and regains familiarity with the car, as well as having the instructor there to give some last-minute reminders.

The Test

Due to Covid, the test procedures are a little different – when you arrive you park and wait in your car. The tester calls when they’re ready, and then you go into the driving test center to begin. They start with a few theory questions – you’ve already passed your theory test, so I guess it’s just to ensure you’ve kept up on your knowledge. After answering what some road signs mean, you then proceed outside to the car and demonstrate your knowledge of where your main engine maintenance components are. I had to describe how I would check the oil. Sitting in the car, you check the indicators and other lights and show that you know where your defogger, lights, indicators, and windshield wiper controls are. Now you get to drive!

Driving during the test is a bit nerve-wracking, but not hard. Just follow what you’ve learned (and keep the last-minute reminders in mind!). The tester will have you drive for a while through various tests – narrow roads, mini-roundabouts (if there’s no left turn, and you’re going straight, make sure to indicate left!) and will evaluate you on a number of things – positioning, how well you’re shifting, how close you pass parked cars, how well you react to hazards, when and how often you check your mirrors, etc. They will also have you do a 3-point turn as well as a backing-around-the-corner maneuver. Remember to not hit a curb – that’s an automatic fail!

When you’ve completed the test, you’ll be directed back to the test center and told if you passed or not. I was expecting to be told as soon as we parked, but the tester had me wait until we went back inside and sat down at his desk before telling me that I had passed. He then went through the marks that I did get (I got 7 out of the allowed 8 grade-2 marks to pass), telling me when and where I should have done things differently. Below are the marks that I got.

Now – before you think I’m all done, there’s more! I do not have my license yet – I now have to apply for it (and pay another €55) online and wait for it to be mailed to me. Of course, because I have been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, I also have to go to the GP and get (another!) physical and form signed by the doctor – even though I did that in September.

Well, the hard part is over, now it’s just a little bit more waiting and paper-shuffling until I get my Actual Irish Driver’s License!

Oh yeah, I get to have these on the front and back of my car for 2 years now!

It’s been about a month since my last post about Learning to Drive, and I thought you all might like to know what’s been happening.

Well, I’ve completed my 6 hours of Essential Driver Training, which was … interesting.  Of course I am able to drive a car, and the instructor noted that immediately.  However, there are a number of driving practices that are taught here that are a bit at odds with my driving habits.  In order to pass the driving test, I’ll need to break my habits and instill new ones.  The ones taking the most of my effort currently are:

• Stay in gear when coming to a stop.  I have a habit of shifting into neutral when approaching a stop.  I’ve been practicing
  this by just keeping my hands on the wheel.
• When coming to a stop, engage the clutch only when the engine is about to stall.  This seems … counterproductive to me.
• Stay in gear and drive through corners.  If I haven’t come to a stop I will usually slow and allow momentum to carry me
  through a corner, engaging the correct gear if and when needed.  They don’t like this.
• Keep both hands on the wheel.  I like to drive with one hand on the stick.  I think it gives me quicker time to make any emergency gear shifts.  They approach it with the idea to be in the correct gear in the first place.  
  and … this one is the biggest one:
• In a manual transmission car, any time you’re stopping for more than 3 seconds, you must engage the parking brake.  Yep, you read that right.  ANY time.  At a stop sign?  At a stop light?  A roundabout?  In traffic?  Waiting to turn right at a light, in the middle of the intersection?  Yep.  All of those are times when they want you to engage the parking brake.  In the driving instructor’s car, this wasn’t hard to do – to engage the parking brake, you push a button, and it will automatically disengage when you let up on the clutch.  This has probably been the easiest adjustment that I’ve had to make, but it’s also the one that makes the least sense to me. 

Apart from these things, there are the things that you would expect to be different – like driving on the left, road signs and markings are different (double yellow lines only exist on the side of the road, not in the middle), hand signals are different (stick your right arm out of the car and move your hand in a counter-clockwise circle to indicate that you’re turning left), can’t turn left on a red light, speed limits are not always the safe speed for the road (tiny, seemingly one-lane country roads with blind
90 degree turns often have a 80kph speed limit) etc.

One of the hardest adjustments to make is just knowing where the car is in relation to the lane.  Since the driver sits on the right side of the car, and drives on the left side of the road, many people who come here end up hitting curbs multiple times.  Oh – hitting a curb will automatically fail a driving test.  So be careful!

At the end of my lessons, I went though a mock test.  And failed.  It was good news though – I only failed because I hit a curb (oops!) during a reverse-around-a-corner maneuver at night.  I couldn’t see the curb, and had successfully done the maneuver plenty of times in the daylight.  Driving tests are only done during the day, so that makes me feel better.

But … There’s another hiccup.  Due to COVID, there is a huge backlog of people waiting to take their driving tests.  I am on the waiting list, but the estimated date that I will receive an invitational email is at the end of February.  At that point, I will be able to make the appointment for the driving test … 3 to 5 weeks later!  

I’ve got some waiting to do now … and I’ll probably book the instructor for some “maintenance” lessons just so I can keep up on my new Irish driving habits.  Until I take my test (and hopefully pass – the testers are notorious for failing people on their first  test), I’ll just dream about the day I get to drive (legally) again!

In case you weren’t aware, this year just for fun and giggles, we decided to move to Ireland. In the middle of a pandemic. This hasn’t been as bad as you might expect. In some ways the pandemic has made this move easier. In other ways, it definitely hasn’t. Gaining the legal right to drive here is one example of how it hasn’t helped, but it wasn’t much better beforehand either.

“But wait,” say you who have visited Ireland, “can’t you just use your U.S. license? That’s what we did when we visited .” Oh yes – that’s exactly what you can do, and it’s legal- but only for a year. After that, it’s no longer legal. The law says you must hold an Irish driving license after a year. Some people choose to ignore that and continue to drive, but they run the risk of being on the wrong side of the law and the insurance companies if anything untoward were to happen.

That seems reasonable, right? If you’re going to stay here for a while, you should learn the driving laws. I’m completely fine with this. However – there are some catches. A pretty big one if you’re from the U.S. is this: Ireland has a driver’s license exchange program, but not for U.S. license holders. We’re not the only country excepted from the exchange program, but it’s the one exception that we’re affected by.

What does this mean for us? It means that we have to go through the drivers education program and tests just as if we had never driven before. This includes:

• Taking a driver’s theory test
• Applying for learner’s driving license (during which time you are only allowed to drive while being accompanied by someone who has held an Irish driver’s license for more than 2 years. Also, you must display a huge “L” plate on front and back of your car whenever you are driving, and you can’t drive on the Motorways (think the Interstate))
• Taking 12 hours of driving lessons whose curriculum is determined by the state
• Taking the driving test, but not until you have held your learner’s license for 6 months (note – if you take your test in an automatic transmission car, your license will only be valid for automatic cars. No stick shifts for you!)
• Applying for your driver’s license (now you can switch your “L” plate to a “N” plate and keep that on your car for the next 2 years)

If that doesn’t sound too bad, add in that each step above has its own associated cost from €45 to €85, except for the lessons – those seem to average €45 per lesson. Also, the pandemic has caused massive backlogs at each of these steps, so getting on waitlists or being able to make an appointment is usually available only after multiple attempts.

The one good thing is that the government has recognized those of us who have a driving history and have given us some respite in the form of being able to waive the 6 month waiting period and reducing the driving lessons down to 6 hours. So that’s good. BUT you have to mail an application form to the office in Cork alongside some other paperwork that you get from your stateside DMV … and your U.S. license.

This is the point I’m at right now. I mailed it in in September, and have received nothing back. I heard from other Americans in Ireland (through a generally helpful Facebook group) that contacting the agency via Instagram was a good way to find out the status of your request, so I did that a couple weeks ago. Good news: they said I’d been approved for both exemptions and that my paperwork and license would be mailed back that week. Bad news: I still have not received that.

I have my lessons booked for next month. And I’m on a waiting list to take my driving test … but if I don’t get that paperwork back before then, I’ll be sorely lacking and will be told to come back another day… which will most likely mean paying to get on a waiting list again.

What’s the point of all this? Well, I guess it’s a bit of a complaint. I’m not much of a complainer, and while I completely understand wanting people to understand and demonstrate their knowledge of the local rules of the road, some of these restrictions and hoops are, quite frankly, ridiculous. At the very least I should be able to drive during this time. Right now my wife, Jessica, is the family chauffeur because she has not started the process and thus is able to legally drive with her US license – at least until we’ve been here a year!

As today is Thanksgiving, I can’t leave this with just being a complaint. I am very grateful to be here, and an inconvenience for me here is really nothing when I step back and think about all of the hardships that I could be experiencing.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating with family and friends. Hug and appreciate them all!