So last week I embarked upon the adventure of getting my driver’s license in Japan. I’d heard plenty of horror stories from previous ALTs and wasn’t particularly looking forward to the process.
I spent some time doing some research to figure out just what I was up against. The most useful site I found was this one. They detailed the whole process and what documents were necessary as well as things to do to help you not fail. Despite all this it still took me 3 times to pass. Here’s what I did:
- Took a 2 hour practice lesson the day before my first test – this was useful because they went through the whole process of getting in the car and how to correctly signal and turn and whatnot.
- Had all my paperwork, went with my supervisor for the first trip.
- The first time I failed they told me I needed to be closer to the curb on the left turns, and that I needed to spend more time making sure I signaled (pause) look and turn back forward (pause) and then switch lanes or turn (whichever I was doing at the time)
- The second time I failed they dinged me for not checking a SECOND time just before I turned left for bikes.
- Third time obviously I passed! Yay! I was so happy when they told me it was ok. Then I had to get my inkan, go pay for my new license, get my picture taken, wait for them to print it out, go back and show it to the office, and then I was free to go!
A fellow JET up in Aso also had written a useful post about the Kumamoto driving test specifically. And someone else had written a nice two part piece about getting a drivers license in Japan. The new Kumamoto website also has a whole section put together about driving, getting a car, and getting a license which was useful, but mostly stuff I already knew since the site wasn’t finished until after I’d been searching for a while.
Anyway, this isn’t much, but it puts all the useful things I found in one place, so I hope it helps some future test taker!
