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| Do you have a local driver's licence? |
| Yes - I live in the same area I lived in when I became legal driving age |
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33% |
[ 20 ] |
| Yes - I learned to drive after I moved here |
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5% |
[ 3 ] |
| Yes - I switched |
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22% |
[ 13 ] |
| No - I use my foreign/other state licence/International Permit |
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25% |
[ 15 ] |
| No - don't have a licence |
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13% |
[ 8 ] |
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| Total Votes : 59 |
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operant
Joined: 27 Jun 2006
Posts: 486
Location: New Zealand
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 Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 7:26 am Post subject: local licence? |
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New Zealand has more cars per capita than any country except the States. Right now I'm managing okay without a car, but I just found out that I have a year from the date I entered the country (so, six months from now) to 'convert' to a New Zealand licence (which involves taking a theory test), otherwise I will not be eligible to drive here after that. Apparently if I don't get a licence before the year is up, I can't even start from the beginning again like a sixteen year old!
What's it like switching to a local licence? Anyone do it who didn't own their own car? |
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dmscvan
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 9887
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 7:40 am Post subject: |
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If I was on a working visa, I think the laws would be the same as you described for NZ (or somewhat similar, at any rate). But on a student visa, I can drive using my license from home.
Getting used to driving on the other side of the road is a whole nother matter! |
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evilmoose
Joined: 29 Jun 2006
Posts: 1743
Location: Lurking in the Canadian Rockies
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 8:56 am Post subject: |
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I was in the States for less than a year, so I didn't have to switch, I could have just used my international licence. Ended up applying for a licence anyway, as I had a friend come over who wanted to buy a van so she could go roadtripping, and there was all of this paperwork that made it impossible for her to buy the car in her name in the short time she had to sort it out, so seeing as I could prove I lived there, I went and got a licence so we could buy the van in my name.
Managed the driving on the wrong side of the road thing ok - it was easy as I was biking a lot anyway. I did tend to go to the drivers side door to get in when I was a passenger though.
The US drivers licence actually ended up expiring before I left, and I went to use it as ID so I could get a "packing and cleaning my apartment before moving" beer, and the evil women at the supermarket wouldn't accept it as ID because it was expired! And then she wouldn't accept any of the other piles of ID I had! (Because it wasn't American it didn't count apparently, I think she just hated me) Grrrr, I really needed the beer after that exchange... anyway, that was a bit off topic. |
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bugstomper
Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 111
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 10:00 am Post subject: Re: local licence? |
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| operant wrote: | | What's it like switching to a local licence? Anyone do it who didn't own their own car? |
I did that when I moved here four years ago. If you are able to get into grad school, you should have no problem with the theory test. You buy a copy of The Road Code at any AA office or at many bookstores, memorize the rules, and memorize the questions and answers in it. Then you go to an AA office to take the theory test. I don't remember now if the Road Code contains the actual pool of questions that are used for the theory test, or if it is just that the wording and illustrations closely match the test questions. Either way, it is easy to prepare from the Road Code book.
If you have a Canadian or US license that is current or no more than 12 months expired, you only have to take the theory test, so it will make no difference that you don't own a car.
Do, however, take your test as soon as possible. You may find that there is a wait to take the test at a place convenient for you. Something may go wrong and you'll have to take it again. You don't want to take any chance of missing your 12 month deadline.
Most of the questions are common sense, but you do have to memorize some things that are arbitrary such as specific speed limits for certain special vehicles or when passing a stopped school bus, or the minimum distance to park from an intersection or pedestrian crossing.
The strangest and least intuitive rule has to do with the "give way" rule, which says that cars coming from the right have right of way. One very strange aspect of this is that when you are signaling for a left turn, you have to give way to a car facing you that is signaling for a right turn, unless that other car can't go because there is a car going straight that is coming up behind you in your right lane. The next most unintuitive rule is another consequence of the Give Way rule, which is who gives way at a roundabout. The rules can have you give way to someone who has not yet entered the roundabout.
Do not actually drive a car without taking to time to practice in easy driving conditions. Keep reminding yourself about which sie of the road to be on. A piece of advice I saw in the movie "World's Fastest Indian" -- Wherever in the world you drive, if you are not sitting on the same side as the center of the road, you are driving on the wrong side 
I found the two give way rules I mentioned above much harder to remember when driving than the fact that I had to stay on the left side of the road. |
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operant
Joined: 27 Jun 2006
Posts: 486
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 10:31 am Post subject: |
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Thanks bugstomper, great advice! I am so relieved I don't have to take the practical test. I don't have any trouble with driving on the other side of the road or with the funny rules about turning left and roundabouts any more, but it's easier because I don't live in Auckland .
Did you have to make an appointment to sit the theory test, or did you just roll up? |
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bugstomper
Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 111
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| operant wrote: | | Did you have to make an appointment to sit the theory test, or did you just roll up? |
I don't remember exactly, but I think I called around, found that some required appointments and some didn't, and went to a convenient one that did not require an appointment.
Here is a link showing all the testing offices in Canterbury, including Christchurch. |
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pak
Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 358
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 11:51 am Post subject: |
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I've yet to face the joys of driving on the wrong side of the road (sorry, the right). It is not something I am particularly looking forward to. I remember as a kid plummetting towards another car in France when my dad was driving on the correct (and british  ) side of the road |
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mivadar
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 4272
Location: currently Portugal - citizen of the world
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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Right now I'm in Germany, the law is the following:
If You have an EU driving licence, You can just drive with it indefinitely (it changed two years ago, before the rule used to be that one can change their EU driving licence to a German one without taking extra tests).
If You have a non-EU licence, they have three categories of countries: some countries can just exchange their licence for a German one without tests (e.g. Switzerland), some countries need to take a theory test only, and some others need to take both a theory and a practical test (i.e. a complete driving exam, but without prescribed hours of practice beforehand with a licenced driving instructor, otherwise compulsory fora first licence here).
Non-EU licences are valid for 6 months after entry, but there is no time-limit for exchanging them for a German licence, you just can't drive after.
(I had some problems with police here because while Hungary is in the EU now, when I got my licence it wasn't the standard EU card licence yet - I just need to change it by 2008, and so the police doesn't recognise it easily ... that it only says "driving licence" in Hungarian and French doesn't help either.)
I don't have a car, by the way - only time I drove here was when I helped friends move, either with rented vans or borrowed cars from friends. The public transport system is very good, and a car is not necessary - don't know when I would use it ... can't think of a grad student here actually who owns a car. |
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mivadar
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 4272
Location: currently Portugal - citizen of the world
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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BTW, as to the "wrong" side of the road - what freaked me out in the UK was not driving on the left, but having the gear stick on my left ... for the life of me I couldn't switch gears without looking down, thinking and taking my eyes off the road for a minute.
 I drove through much of Wales in second gear without changing (mind, in the mountains, it wasn't so bad ... car didn't like it much though). |
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dmscvan
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 9887
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| mivadar wrote: | BTW, as to the "wrong" side of the road - what freaked me out in the UK was not driving on the left, but having the gear stick on my left ... for the life of me I couldn't switch gears without looking down, thinking and taking my eyes off the road for a minute.
I drove through much of Wales in second gear without changing (mind, in the mountains, it wasn't so bad ... car didn't like it much though). |
Yeah, this is actually the worst part - everything in the car switched around. Always turning on the wipers instead of signalling. And knowing the width of the vehicle. For me, the absolute worst is backing up. I have such a difficult time with this! I've only ever rented a car - I certainly can't afford my own. If I had my own though, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long to get used to it. |
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mivadar
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 4272
Location: currently Portugal - citizen of the world
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| bugstomper wrote: | | The strangest and least intuitive rule has to do with the "give way" rule, which says that cars coming from the right have right of way. |
Just out of curiosity - why is this strange or counterintuitive?
If there is a crossing of roads of the same priority (or no traffic lights, or no signs), it makes perfect sense that the priority has to be determined in some way or other.
I think if the traffic is on the right side, it even makes sense to give way to the right - cars are turning on the smaller arc to the right, so they are off the crossing faster and they don't disturb through traffic at all.
Admittedly, it did confuse me that even on left-handed systems you give way to the right as well  ... everything else is inverted, but not this (and the smaller arc logic doesn't apply).
Still ... it's one way of determining priority ...
(As for roundabouts, as far as I know, the rule everywhere independent of direction of traffic is more or less that whoever is already in the roundabout has priority over the car that's trying to enter - which makes some degree of sense.) |
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galaxee
Joined: 05 Jul 2006
Posts: 211
Location: research triangle, NC, US
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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there are so many out-of-state license plates here because there are students from all over the place and we all keep reciprocity with our home states. i think the police have given up trying to find out who should and shouldn't have switched to an in-state license!
of course that's very different from going to a different country! |
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bugstomper
Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 111
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| mivadar wrote: | | Just out of curiosity - why is this strange or counterintuitive? |
The problem is the way the rule is applied and the way it supersedes other considerations in the two cases I mentioned. I mentioned roundabouts as a second example of the give way rule producing counterintuitive results.
The first case is when you are signaling to make a left turn (or as I have to get used to people saying here, when you are "indicating" a left turn) and someone going the other way is stopped, indicating to make a right turn in front of you, you are supposed to stop and let them go. Imagine the equivalent in your case, being about to make a right turn, nobody in your way, no traffic moving in your way, but having to stop because you notice somebody up ahead and to the left is sitting there with their left turn signal on waiting for a clear spot in oncoming traffic.
It gets worse... If there are two lanes in my direction, there may be a car coming up from behind me on my right (in your equivalent case it would be someone about to pass you on the left going forward as you are turning right). In that case the person in oncoming traffic who is sitting there waiting for a turn cannot go, and I can make the left turn. But how am I supposed to know that when it all depends on the car in front of me being able to see that there is a car coming up behind me that I might not be able to see at all?!!
The roundabout is another example. Because of the rule, if I come up to a roundabout and someone is heading to it on my right and is not yet in the roundabout, I have to give way to them, even though they are not in the roundabout and I could get in the roundabout before them. In a system where someone in the roundabout has priority over someone who is not, I could enter the roundabout and expect that they will yield to me when they enter the roundabout. Here, I can expect that the person coming from the right will come barrelling through expecting me to stay back out of their way. For quite a while I got honked at a lot at roundabouts when I entered because there were no cars actually in the roundabout but someone on the right was expecting to be able to enter without slowing down. |
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ellie
Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 6618
Location: ellieland
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| i initially had a ghanaian driving license, although i've never lived in ghana. i now have a british driving license too, since i could only drive on a ghanaian license for a year here. |
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bugstomper
Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 111
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| dmscvan wrote: | | If I had my own though, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long to get used to it. |
I got my first automatic shift car when I moved here. I had always had manual shift in the US, but figured I had better reduce the cognitive load as much as possible and not try to learn to shift with my left hand along with everything else.
Four years later and I'm still walking over to the passenger side to get in to drive, signaling with the windshield wiper and clearing the windscreen with the turn indicator. It's a lot better, but those habits just don't seem to go away.
By comparison, driving on the "wrong side" of the road was a lot easier to get used to. I lived in Boston area for a long time, so I got used to people driving on every which side of the road, just as I learned to look both ways before crossing a one way street. Boston turned out to be good training for driving here |
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