What My Year-Long Struggle for the German Driving License Taught Me
There is a time for everything and it isn’t right until you are absolutely confident.
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If there is something that I have struggled the most in life for, it is driving. I was born in India and I never had to drive myself around there as we could afford a driver. I did take lessons, took a driving exam, and ‘bought’ myself a license, but never actually used it.
When I was 26 years of age and married with one kid, we moved to the USA. Here driving was a necessary evil. My son was three months old at this time and shortly after, I had a daughter too. With two kids and my husband on frequent business trips, I had to take the plunge to start the driving process here. Moving from one state to another with some states having more lenient rules than the others, did not make it easy.
I started the driving process in Indiana when my daughter was three months old but completed it in Rochester, NY with frequent breaks, driving lessons, failures, and a lot of tears. I bagged my drivers' license at the fourth attempt and vowed never to subject myself to this torture again.
Usually what I hate the most comes back to haunt me sooner or later. After four years, we moved to Germany. I am studying nursing and the odd work timings make it imperative for me to have a driver’s license here. My New York driver’s license was not accepted. Yes, there are states in the USA, like Texas which have a cooperation with the German license system. People hailing with driver’s licenses from here can easily exchange their US license for a new German one, but I was not as lucky.
Things I would vow to avoid would usually come back for me, and this time, it wasn’t any different. Taking a driver’s license is considered the greatest privilege in Germany. Locals, as well as foreigners, pay a lot for this. One has to register at a driving school, take expensive driving lessons, sit for theory classes, invest a good amount of driving hours and when ready, first take a theoretical and then a practical exam.
Neither the theory nor the practical exam is easy. Out of thirty questions, if you make only two mistakes, depending upon how much of a weightage they hold, you will fail the theory test. As for the practical exam, each attempt costs 300 euros and you are to drive 55 minutes perfectly.
The driving time includes driving on the autobahn- or the coveted speeding highway, the inner city roads, reverse and parallel parking, emergency braking, and other practical driving maneuvers. This was much more difficult than the 20-minute test I cleared in my fourth attempt in New York, and so, goes without saying, it was quite an expensive journey for me.
I started taking driving lessons in Germany November 2020 onwards. Because of the pandemic and the lockdown, I had to start and stop taking lessons. Unlike in the USA, you cannot get a learner's license and practice with your relatives. You need to register with a driving school and pay the instructor each time you are on the road. Each double one-and-a-half-hour lesson costed me 86 euros. This cost differs from place to place in Germany.
The driving instructor decides when the student is ready to take a practical exam. The theory exam you take three weeks before you are ready to take the practical one. This too costs around 150 euros. Every time you fail, the same cost would have to be paid again. In the US, the theory exam costs hardly 10 dollars, and anyone with a little bit of logic can clear it in one go.
The one in Germany has technical questions about the car's hardware in addition to the general driving and sign knowledge. The learning kit includes a total of 1600 video and theoretical questions you are required to study and be able to answer in a short time. To answer the 30 questions correctly in the theory test, you need to be very well prepared.
It took me two attempts to clear my theory test as I had not even seen a few videos — which carry the highest weightage. After clearing the theory exam, it took me three attempts since July 2021 to clear my practical exam. Corona and my fear of taking the wheel played a role in the delay.
Constant failure made me unsure of myself
When I failed my first attempt, I was disappointed not only because of the failure but also because of the amount of money I had spent training myself for it, and the amount of money I will spend repaying for every attempt. Unlike the USA, where each attempt cost hardly 10 dollars, I was losing 300 euros each time I failed and paying through my nose for additional driving practice.
The rejection left a bad taste in my mouth and reduced my confidence for other things I was learning to do in this new country. Driving was necessary for me to succeed as a nursing student. I ended up calling a taxi to reach work on weekends and public holidays when public transport was just not available here. My work under a mask at odd times as a student nurse was tiring as is and the anxious and long commute to work was not easing the pain.
I tried hypnosis, miracles, novenas, and mind-therapy the next time I took the practical exam but to no avail. I failed again as I failed to rightly translate a sign in my mind — the beginning of a new town. Here, every time you enter the town, the speed limit is 50.
A small stretch before and after the highway is ‘außerhalb’ or not part of any town and you are able to drive up to 100 km per hour if there is no speed limit mentioned. Then there are other places which are forested and without speed limit, but with street lights. Here the speed limit is 50.
Driving experience gives you a feel for the roads and the speed limits, even when no actual speed is mentioned. You need to take an account of the speed and drive accordingly, or you would fail your driving test now and pay a lot if you are caught later.
Until my third attempt, I had made enough mistakes to learn to clear the test on the third go, but only correct driving would not do. The instructor wants to see how confident you are. He wants to see you drive maximum speed on the autobahn and keep a lookout for nervousness and fatigue. He will evaluate your reverse parking skills and tell you to make changes until you are perfectly parked. He will make sure you huff and puff, toil and sweat, and most importantly, pay hard for your driving behind that wheel.
“Achtung! Don’t get too comfortable on that hot seat!” You are on probation for at least two years. Any major driving mistake will cost enable you to lose your driving privilege from 2 weeks to 6 months and cost you a bomb. Minor mistakes add up on your license and increase your insurance rates. Either way, driving on German roads will cost you your nerves and a lot of moolah.
Constant failure dwindled my confidence in the Almighty.
I could not understand why after paying so much and investing so much time, I could not clear the driving test here. The whole procedure made me more nervous and unhappy. The rejection made me doubtful I would achieve my nursing degree in a foreign language here too.
In order to sit for the exam every time, I had to concentrate and control my nerves and my mind. I had to think positive when all I could see down the tunnel was only darkness. I had to stop blaming God for not helping me clear an exam that could cost me or another person his life or death.
During the last attempt, I was working at the orthopedic section of the hospital and encountered many patients who had broken a neck or a leg in a car accident. This made me understand the rigidity of the whole license process in Germany.
Driving anywhere in the world is more of a necessary evil.
Driving tests must be as stringent as in Germany to keep hooligans and accidents at bay but the cost for the same is unjustified. A person with a decent job but regular expenses may have to set aside a good amount of money to even think of attempting for a license here. Given the frequency and the cost of public transport here, the process could be made more affordable.
I spent a total of 6500 euros to get a driving privilege in Germany — roughly half of what I made in a year here. A normal starter will need 30 driving lessons which would cost 1200 to 1300 euros depending upon where one lived. I was a horrible driver from the start, and starting and stopping lessons because of the pandemic made several of them redundant.
I had to pay the state to transfer my license from New York to Germany. The only benefit a transfer gave me was that no did not have to sit in for theory lessons like every Starter does. I did not even need to take a minimum of 30 lessons like every teenager does which include some at night ad well, but owing to my limited driving skills, I ended up taking 45 lessons.
At the end of this impossible journey, I realized that all difficult exams can only be cleared through perfection and confidence. Before my third and last successful driving attempt, I was sure that I knew what each sign and maneuver asked me to do.
As long as I paid attention to the road and the happenings, I would clear it. I had to train my nerves to calm down and allow me to concentrate fully on the driving situation. I had to drive confidently so the instructor would gain the confidence in handing me my driving privilege, and this I had to do in the snow. Yes, at my third and final attempt, it was snowing on the Autobahn and the instructor demanded me to drive at 120 km/hr just to test my nerves. I did it!
The hospital internship made the unfair situation more acceptable.
The whole exercise taught me that God was not only with me but with everyone else on the road. He would not hand me my license until I was no longer a threat to them. Of course, I did not want to be the reason so many patients had to come to the hospital with a broken arm or leg, or end up there myself.
The most important part of any practical exam is the control of your own mind. Until you train your own mind to deviate from anxiety and concentrate only on the knowledge you have invested in performing the task that lies ahead, no one else can do it for you.
You have the steering wheel in your hands. No one else can steer it for you. You have the breaks under your feet, you need to use them as and when your mind encounters obstacles along the way. You decide the frequency and the force with which to use them. Remember, any lack of concentration could cost a life, and as a nursing student, performing several practicals that could also be life-threatening to others, I concur.
Takeaways
1. You always take things you pay hard for seriously
2. God helps those who help themselves at a time they are perfect in control to undertake the big responsibility entrusted to them.
3. Not all necessary things in life are reasonably priced, so saving goes a long way.
4. Until you learn to control your own mind and enable yourself to access the information that you have stored in your brain cells, no one can help you.
5. If you are having a bad day and get repeated signals that you will not be able to perform today, take a day off without bothering with the circumstances. Forcing yourself will not only harm your own self but also others.
6. Don’t ever try to avoid something you are scared of or detest, it will sooner or later come back to haunt you until you are forced to live with it.
