New Driver's License part 2

After passing the written test, I took the driving test. This was always going to be the easiest part. I have driven in multiple countries, have a pretty good understanding of Chinese driving habits, and know the differences between what the law says versus how people actually drive. I'm not at all familiar with the streets of Kaohsiung, but that would never matter if the person administering the test told me where to go.

The real reason it never mattered was because the road test does not take place on the road. To demonstrate your ability to drive safely on the crowded and chaotic streets of Taiwan, you have to perform elementary maneuvers on a closed course with absolutely no other cars, pedestrians or distractions. It was kind of a joke. I could have passed this test during my first week of driver's ed in high school.

To get a license, you have to be able to drive in a straight line; stop at a fake red light; stop at a fake railroad crossing; go up a hill, which is more like a wide speed bump, stop at the top and go down; back up into an unusually large parking spot; parallel park into an even larger parking spot; drive forward on a curved road, and then drive backward on the same road, even though the written test clearly states that driving backward on a curved road is illegal.

It is impossible to turn the wrong way or hit anyone since it is a closed course. There are sensors all over the road. Running over one means losing a few points, as does not stopping at the right places or rolling backward downhill. The “hill” part is for manual transmissions. You have to stop on the hill without stalling or rolling backward downhill. I don't see how anyone can fail that part in a modern automatic.

I took the test in a manual transmission because the license limits the kind of car you can drive based on the kind of car you use on the test. Had I taken it in an automatic, I would only be able to legally drive automatics in Taiwan. Not that it matters. Most newer cars are automatics and I would be surprised if a single rental place in the country has stick shifts. But when I have to renew my international permit, it will be based on my license. If my Taiwan license is limited to automatics, my international permit will be as well. That could affect future driving on future trips out of the country. Assuming the police in those countries care. I prefer sticks, on the rare occasion that is an option, so it made the most sense that I would be licensed to drive them.

The test course looked like it was designed for SUVs. Everything was big and wide; often wider than the actual streets in Taiwan. You can take the test in your own car or you can borrow a 10-year-old Toyota Tercel. In a Tercel, those parking spaces are huge.

After passing the test, easily, they took me to the counter where my passport photo was laminated onto a card right then and there. I thought it was a temporary license until the permanent one could be printed, but that flimsy laminated cardboard is my actual driver's license. If I took it to the United States, every police officer would automatically assume it was a terrible forgery.

Just outside the main building, some people were taking their scooter driving test. So I watched. I thought the driving test for cars was a joke. A trained monkey could pass the scooter test. They had to drive in a relatively straight line, stop at a fake railroad crossing, stop at a fake red light, and make two right turns on the course. That was it. The hardest part for the people I watched was driving in a straight line. Everyone lost points when swerving into the sensors or putting their feet on the ground to stabilize themselves. Whenever anyone hit a sensor, there was a loud alarm that everyone could hear. Knowing how much Chinese people hate to lose face, that must have been the hardest part. But if loud noises are distracting, Taiwan driving is not for you.

I thought the tests were pretty easy, other than the terrible English, but I have heard that the failure rate is pretty high. That must be why there are driving schools all over the country. Apparently, there is at least one school across the street or very near every motor vehicles office. The only purpose of the driving schools is to show you tricks for passing the test. They have nothing to do with learning how to drive. You can even take the test at the school, which the government encourages. I assume to cut down on wait times, but I'm sure it is easier to pay the school a little extra to pass than it would be at the DMV.

Getting a driver's license in Taiwan has been an educational experience. Not because I learned anything about driving. I learned why the drivers of Taiwan are so objectively terrible. No one learns how to drive at any point in their lives. There is no driver's education in high school because you have to be at least 18 to drive here. The driving schools show them how to pass the test and the test has nothing to do with real world road conditions. People pass the test and learn how to drive by following all the mistakes everyone else on the road is making.

Just like China, there is no police presence on the road to discourage illegal behavior. No one in Taiwan or China knows that feeling of seeing flashing lights in their rear view mirror. There are cameras to send out fines to people who run select red lights or exceed the speed limit in the wrong place, which is odd since there are warning signs before every camera. It makes sense that they warn people to follow the law, but telling everyone where the cameras are only tells them where they have to behave. If there is no warning sign, you can run the right lights to your heart's content. You can drive on the wrong side of the road at night without any headlights and the police will never know. Until they are called after a collision. There are consequences to driving like a blind jackrabbit if someone gets injured, but if you make it home in one piece, you can do absolutely anything you want on the roads of Taiwan. And many people do.