A Day at the DMV

Here’s a scary thought for you. I now have a Japanese drivers license but no idea of how to drive on the left side of the road as is required in Japan. I once rented a car in a left-hand drive country but that was a sparsely-populated Caribbean island – not a city of 13 million people.

The process took about four hours at the drivers license office in Tokyo. One starts out at a window for foreigners wanting to use their existing license to get a Japanese license. From there it is a process of going from numbered window to numbered window, taking a number and waiting to be called. Then off to another window on one of three floors. Clueless as to what is going on behind those windows one is left to wait, and wait. Fortunately, all the young people that have come to take their drivers test are a constant source of interest for the peoplewatcher. The fashions can be quite extraordinary. More on that in another post.

For new drivers getting their license at 18 they are required to take weeks of lessons that can easily cost over US$2000. What’s it cost in Peavine to get a license? Maybe $30 if one takes the free training at high school. But it didn’t prepare me for the streets of Tokyo.