License to Drive
Many of you, beloved readers, may remember that I have been without my precious California Driver License for the last few months (see here and here). Although not a huge inconvenience, this has forced me to do things like carry my passport for identification purposes and has prevented me from renting a car on more than one occasion. As I noted before, the state of California has not been particularly helpful on this matter, probably due to the fact that it is busy self-destructing and doesn't have much time to help us ex-pats out. All I could get from the CA DMV was a business-card-like object with some of my license info, a signature in blue pen, and a note saying that "the original license was reported lost or stolen" on it. Clearly, it would not do.
Fortunately for me, though, Switzerland is remarkably cool when it comes to getting a driver license (un permis de conduire). In exchange for jumping through a few hoops, they will gladly give you a Swiss license in exchange for your foreign one without forcing you to take driving lessons or tests or anything like that. As much as it pains me to say it, I doubt the US will ever adopt a similar policy with regard to foreign licenses as it would first require the American government to recognize both the legitimacy and competency of other governments -- something that is about as likely to happen as a Padres' World Series victory. At any rate, despite not having my official CA license, I figured I would take what I had and give it a try; it would certainly be better than waiting till I got back to CA in August.
The first challenge was the eye exam. On the advice of my labmate, I just wandered down to the optician by my apartment and asked for the driving exam. Given that in California, the exam consists of the yes/no question, "Can you read line 4 on the eye chart behind me?" I was not expecting anything particularly grueling. As it turned out, there was only a cute little machine that you put your head into and the optician just ran through a series of cards and asked you to answer some simple questions about what you saw. Of course, the whole point of the machine was that it was projecting different images to your left and right eyes, so in order to answer any of the questions correctly, you would need to coordinate the two images. As some of my readers know already, this is not something of which I am physically capable. My eyes do not function stereoscopically and thus I was forced to "fake" the entire exam by rapidly "switching" which eye I was looking out of trying to mentally reconstruct the image. Thankfully, the optician was pretty lenient, so I managed to pass with only a note that I needed to wear my contacts or glasses at all times while driving.
After taking care of that, I was ready to face the SAN - Service des Automobiles et Navigation. Afer a 20 minute bus ride, 20 minutes waiting in line, and about 10 minutes of trying to convince the guy at the window that a flimsy piece of paper was the best thing I could get from the state of CA, he told me that all I needed was to come back to the SAN with a copy of the police report of the original theft and that everything would be ok. When I returned later in the day with the report, the woman I saw at the window was not impressed with my police report. She insisted that I needed an attestation from the state of CA testifying that I had been a licensed driver before I entered Switzerland. As there was some mention of this on the webpage, I had of course tried to obtain something like this before going to SAN, but none of the people I spoke with at the CA DMV had any idea what an attestation was and insisted that the state of CA didn't print nothin for nobody.
Undetered, I called back again and kept asking for someone who knew what an attestation was. After two transfers, I was put in touch with the smartest person in the entire DMV. In hushed tones, she told me to go to the DMV webpage and type "INF 1125" into the search field. I found a form for requesting a copy of your driving history. In order to turn this into a true attestation, more would be needed, though. She told me that in addition to filling out the form, I also had to write in big, bold letters at the top "H5 CERTIFICATION NEEDED". This magic incantation, along with $5, would produce the required form in 3-5 business days.
When the requested form finally arrived in the mail, it turned out to be nothing more than about 10 lines of printout, mostly in acronyms, and a cheapo blue stamp at the bottom saying "state of California." Not the most official looking thing I'd ever seen. Regardless, I figured it was all I would get so I headed back to SAN. I saw a new woman at the window this time, and after briefly explaining the situation to her, I waited patiently for 10 minutes while she typed things into the computer and scanned documents. Afte she was done with the computer, she told me to walk downstairs and pick up my license at the red window. That was it.
Fig. 1: Much like Corey Haim (or was it Corey Feldman?), I now have a license to drive. Below: Another membership card! But, for what?
I am now an officially licensed driver in Switzerland -- and by treaty, all of the EU -- and my license will never expire nor will I ever have to pay any sort of fees to maintain it. I can't wait to go out and rent a ridiculously small car to celebrate!
As you can see from the image above, I also got another card in the mail the other day. In case you can't read the small type, it is a membership card for Le Club Alpin Suisse (CAS). What is CAS? For now, I will merely link to their webpage here, but as I am hoping to actually get invovled with the club this weekend, I hope to have an update soon on what it's all about.
Fortunately for me, though, Switzerland is remarkably cool when it comes to getting a driver license (un permis de conduire). In exchange for jumping through a few hoops, they will gladly give you a Swiss license in exchange for your foreign one without forcing you to take driving lessons or tests or anything like that. As much as it pains me to say it, I doubt the US will ever adopt a similar policy with regard to foreign licenses as it would first require the American government to recognize both the legitimacy and competency of other governments -- something that is about as likely to happen as a Padres' World Series victory. At any rate, despite not having my official CA license, I figured I would take what I had and give it a try; it would certainly be better than waiting till I got back to CA in August.
The first challenge was the eye exam. On the advice of my labmate, I just wandered down to the optician by my apartment and asked for the driving exam. Given that in California, the exam consists of the yes/no question, "Can you read line 4 on the eye chart behind me?" I was not expecting anything particularly grueling. As it turned out, there was only a cute little machine that you put your head into and the optician just ran through a series of cards and asked you to answer some simple questions about what you saw. Of course, the whole point of the machine was that it was projecting different images to your left and right eyes, so in order to answer any of the questions correctly, you would need to coordinate the two images. As some of my readers know already, this is not something of which I am physically capable. My eyes do not function stereoscopically and thus I was forced to "fake" the entire exam by rapidly "switching" which eye I was looking out of trying to mentally reconstruct the image. Thankfully, the optician was pretty lenient, so I managed to pass with only a note that I needed to wear my contacts or glasses at all times while driving.
After taking care of that, I was ready to face the SAN - Service des Automobiles et Navigation. Afer a 20 minute bus ride, 20 minutes waiting in line, and about 10 minutes of trying to convince the guy at the window that a flimsy piece of paper was the best thing I could get from the state of CA, he told me that all I needed was to come back to the SAN with a copy of the police report of the original theft and that everything would be ok. When I returned later in the day with the report, the woman I saw at the window was not impressed with my police report. She insisted that I needed an attestation from the state of CA testifying that I had been a licensed driver before I entered Switzerland. As there was some mention of this on the webpage, I had of course tried to obtain something like this before going to SAN, but none of the people I spoke with at the CA DMV had any idea what an attestation was and insisted that the state of CA didn't print nothin for nobody.
Undetered, I called back again and kept asking for someone who knew what an attestation was. After two transfers, I was put in touch with the smartest person in the entire DMV. In hushed tones, she told me to go to the DMV webpage and type "INF 1125" into the search field. I found a form for requesting a copy of your driving history. In order to turn this into a true attestation, more would be needed, though. She told me that in addition to filling out the form, I also had to write in big, bold letters at the top "H5 CERTIFICATION NEEDED". This magic incantation, along with $5, would produce the required form in 3-5 business days.
When the requested form finally arrived in the mail, it turned out to be nothing more than about 10 lines of printout, mostly in acronyms, and a cheapo blue stamp at the bottom saying "state of California." Not the most official looking thing I'd ever seen. Regardless, I figured it was all I would get so I headed back to SAN. I saw a new woman at the window this time, and after briefly explaining the situation to her, I waited patiently for 10 minutes while she typed things into the computer and scanned documents. Afte she was done with the computer, she told me to walk downstairs and pick up my license at the red window. That was it.
Fig. 1: Much like Corey Haim (or was it Corey Feldman?), I now have a license to drive. Below: Another membership card! But, for what?I am now an officially licensed driver in Switzerland -- and by treaty, all of the EU -- and my license will never expire nor will I ever have to pay any sort of fees to maintain it. I can't wait to go out and rent a ridiculously small car to celebrate!
As you can see from the image above, I also got another card in the mail the other day. In case you can't read the small type, it is a membership card for Le Club Alpin Suisse (CAS). What is CAS? For now, I will merely link to their webpage here, but as I am hoping to actually get invovled with the club this weekend, I hope to have an update soon on what it's all about.
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