Driving, episode I: The Phantom Menace

First-year JETs are allowed to drive in Japan as long as they have both their normal US license and an international driver's permit. It costs about $10 and ten minutes to get one from the nearest AAA office. They're only valid for a year, at which point Japanese law requires us to obtain a full Japanese license.

For folks from the UK and Ireland, all this means is you go to the nearest DMV, fill out some paperwork, maybe take a vision test, and $20 and half an hour later, you've got your license. For Canadians and Americans (not sure about Aussies, Kiwis, and South Africans), though, we have to take an actual road test.

The test is conducted on a closed course built by the DMV. The DMV provides the vehicle. The test lasts about as long as the road test back home. Unlike the test back home, however, the Japanese road test is legendarily hard to pass. Even apart from the test itself, getting through the process is nothing short of a headache.

On top of all this, you must go to your prefectural DMV to take the test. There aren't any branch offices. This is a mild inconvenience for most JETs, who are a reasonable-length train ride from the DMV. For those of us living on an island, though, the inconvenience is decidedly more than mild.

The DMV is only open during standard business hours--M-F, 9-5--which, as with everything else in Japan, means going there requires taking time off work. (Some schools grant their ALT special leave; all the JETs I know and I have to cut into our allowance of twenty vacation days.) For those of us having to travel from an island, it further requires leaving the day before and making overnight arrangements. ($200 for round-trip airfare + $50/night at a hotel) The test can only be taken once a day. That means that, for folks flying in, it's wiser to take the next day off (in case you fail the first time) rather than fly home and have to do the whole thing over again. (However, vacation days must be scheduled in advance, which means you risk wasting a vacation day if you pass on the first day.) Even if you pass, the proceedings can stretch until the mid- to late afternoon, which in the case of Tsushima can cause us to miss the last flight out.

My school approached me back in June, having noticed that my IDP was set to expire at the end of July. They very kindly explained to me all the steps in the process. My supervisor warned me that the test is difficult, and, moreover, is a royal pain for people coming from Tsushima. She told me about a local driving center in my town, where, for about $50 an hour, I could practice on a course based on the real one at the DMV. Doing so would require I take vacation time, so I politely declined.

Rob, one of the departing ALTs, suggested in June that, if at all possible, I wait until September to take the test. He explained that everything he had heard made him think the proctors are more strict during July and August, because that's when all the second-year ALTs' IDPs expire, and the DMV is thus inundated with foreign examinees. He's the only person I know who passed on his first try, so I took his advice and didn't make plans for the test until after my visit home.

I did, however, start on the paperwork. The DMV requires an official translation of your driving license from your home country, and that translation can only be obtained from JAF, which serves the same function in Japan as AAA does back home. The nearest JAF office to Tsushima is downtown Nagasaki, which means mailing all the materials to them to get it translated.

Before I could get that far, however, my supervisor was awesome enough to call JAF and make sure there were no problems with my license. It turns out there was a big one: my Georgia license lists my "Exam Date," not the "Issue Date." I, like any sensible person, know that means the same thing. This being part of a bureaucratic process, though, sense is one of the first things tossed out the window.

Fine, I thought; I'll just call the folks in Georgia and get them to fax that line of information to the school. (Or to my parents, if Georgia had a problem with faxing international.) A kindly if stubborn lady at the Georgia DDS (because Georgia doesn't like calling it the DMV) told me that there's only one option for official documentation of driver information: a paper copy of the driving record. They come in three- and five-year versions, take seven to ten business days to process, and would you please kindly include a money order for $7 with the paperwork.

It was the end of July before I made this phone call, so I quickly did the math: two weeks to process the request (that's seven to ten business days, and the DDS is closed on Mondays), one week each way to get it mailed from and to Japan, international postage, and the processing fee for a money order in the amount of ... US$7. I estimated it costing about $20 and anywhere from four to six weeks to get the thing taken care of. That in mind, I decided to get it taken care of while I visited home.

All of that just so I could get my license translated into Japanese. The DMV requires some comparatively light paperwork in addition to the translation. I finally got this all put together by mid-September. My supervisor helped me make the arrangements with the DMV. My adventure was only beginning...