Driver's License

Since we don't have a car, getting a German driver's license wasn't really necessary. But I thought it would be nice to rent a car occasionally, so I started looking into the process of getting a license.

I learned that some states in the US have a reciprocity agreement with Germany. A driver's license from on of these states can simply be exchanged for a German license. The driver's license from some other states can be used to get a German license if you take a written test also. The driver's license from the rest of the states does no good at all, and you have to take a written and a driving test in order to get a German driver's license. As luck would have it, my New York license falls into the last category.

I wasn't looking forward to the time a cost of going through the written and driving tests. I'm told that they are difficult and expensive. Parents don't have to save money for their children's college, but they save for the driving school that is required before taking the tests. Also, the written test requires good knowledge of German in order to distinguish subtleties in the questions.

So, I decided to save time and money by exchanging my New York license for a Colorado license. A Colorado license falls into the first category, and my sister Kelly lives in Denver, so she could help me with the mailing.

I flew to Denver to visit Kelly, but I figured that I still saved money compared to paying for the driving school in Germany. It was fairly easy to exchange my license. I took my NY license and passport to the DOT, waited for a couple of hours in the waiting room, and then spent about a half-hour filling out forms and getting my picture taken. Colorado doesn’t give you a license on the spot; they mail the license to your Colorado address in order to establish residency. I spent a couple of nice days with Kelly and Curtis, and return to Germany.

When I got back to Germany, I waited a few days for Kelly to send the license. I took it and my passport and a passport photo to City Hall, and waiting about a half-hour in the waiting room. Not bad, I thought. When my number was called, I put all of my documents on the clerk’s desk, and sat back to watch the wheels turn. The clerk looked at my stuff and asked, where is my translation of the Colorado license into German? Oh well, I gathered up my stuff and took it all to the ADAC, which is the German version of AAA. I paid my €39, and was told to come back in a week.

A week later I left early from work and stopped back at ADAC, but the translation wasn’t finished yet. A few days later I left work early again in order to get to the ADAC before closing time, and everything was ready. So I took all my documents, including the translation, back to City Hall, and waited another half hour in the waiting room.

When my number was called, I took all my documents and put them on the clerks desk, and sat back to watch the wheels turn. The clerk starts typing away at the computer, and then starts up conversations with the other clerks. It seems that they kept track of my stay in Germany 13 years ago. The problem was that you have to trade in your license within 6 months of arriving in Germany so that you don’t get out of practice driving. Luckily, the 2 years I spent earlier in Germany didn’t count, and I had only been in Germany 5 months this time around, so everything was accepted. I paid my €35, and am now waiting the required 4 weeks until my German license arrives.

By the way, I noticed on the forms that I applied for an EU license, not a German license. We’ll see.