Talk:Obtaining a Japanese driver's license
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| Driver's License Guide | ||
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Skill test | Message board |
Please describe your own experience getting your Japanese driver's license. Helpful things to mention include:
- If not Ehime, where you got your license
- When you got your license
- How long it took you from start to finish
- How many times you
- had to go to the Driver's License Center (DLC)
- took practice sessions
- took the test(s)
- Where you traveled from,
- how you got to the license center, and
- how much you spent on transportation
- Approximate overall cost
and so on.
Contents |
Aaron (Ikata, Ehime)
I'm a CIR in Ikata, Ehime, from August 2006 to the present.
- I started working on getting my license in May 2007, and got it near the end of June 2007.
- I went to the DLC a total of 6 or 7 times.
- I took 5 practice sessions and passed the driving test on the first try.
Traveling from Ikata is a pain:
- Drive to the Yawatahama Fuji (shopping center) and park (~25 minutes; free)
- Walk to the JR Yawatahama station (~5 minutes)
- Ride to JR Matsuyama (~1 hour; ¥2490 one way, or ¥4420 round-trip)
- Walk to bus stop (~2 minutes)
- Take the bus to the DLC (~30 minutes; ¥500 one way)
- Total: 2 hours, ¥2710 each way
Between travel costs, instruction and other fees, I spent close to ¥50,000 getting my license.
Overall I guess I had it easy, but it didn't feel that way. I remember being absolutely shell-shocked after my first practice session—I couldn't believe how ridiculously pointless and irrelevant the whole thing was. One important thing to note is that some of the practice instructors are very cold and frightening, while others can be very kind and helpful. If you find one that doesn't intimidate you, take the opportunity to sneak in more than one session before he or she goes off duty.
-Ikata-cir 22:19, 22 June 2007 (JST)
I've had better.
I never got my scooter license, but I went through the motions. I am an American citizen who did not have a motorcycle endorsement on her international driving permit.
You may be advised (by Ms. Omori at EPIC) to go to the main police station to begin the process. That is a waste of time and energy, and will only result in having your chest stared at, your sense of personal space invaded and in the end, they will simply tell you to pay 300,000 yen to take the driver's school course, which is also a waste because most of us already know how to drive (if you want a car) or ride (if you want a scooter/motorcycle). The point of such courses, as I understand it, is not only to very literally pay for your privilege to drive or ride, as "passing" is supposed to be guaranteed upon completion, but funnel money into the system.
The next step is actually required. I went to the Licensing Center to register. You cannot take the test on the same day as you register, so I returned another day to take the test. I failed by 7 questions more than the 15 I could have missed and passed on a 110 question test. You are not allowed to know what questions you missed. I returned a month later to try it again, and failed by the exact same number of questions. Curious, I stood there for 40 minutes asking questions about questions I could have missed or got right. I did not know, so I just took up space. I had been studying the nationally distributed text book, written and printed by the police department, and when I made this known, I received the most infuriating piece of advice I have heard in all of my days in Japan (aside from "study harder!"), which was "No, no, no, you can't use that. You must study the private driving school's text book! It has pretty pictures, is twice as long and costs four times as much!" But I told them that there was almost a snowball's chance in Hades that I would buy a private company's text book for passing the national exam when there was a national exam text available. The female officer gifted me with her private copy and I said I would return.
That turned out to be a lie, because I am not privy to patronizing crack systems. I sent the book back without explanation. There is now a photocopied copy of the private school's text floating around in Ehime for interested parties.
Apologies - I have forgotten details about cost. I believe it was about 3,000 for each test, and there was also a separate registration fee, I think.
~P
Christopher (Kihoku-cho, Ehime)
I'm a CIR in Kihoku, Ehime from August 2006 to the present.
- I started preparations for my license in July 2007 and obtained it on August 10, the day my international driver's permit expired. I obtained it on my second test attempt.
- I was lucky, and got all of my initial paperwork done the first day I went to the driver's center. This seems to be very rare, as I met other people who were told to come back for the interview/eye test/ and other stuff despite having plenty of time.
- I practiced for 30 blocks, or five hours, which of course, cost me about ￥30,000. I also spent probably around ￥14,100 on train tickets, most of which were cheaper using the Young Weekender's Card. I rode the bus around six times, so that was ￥6,000 or so. I took the test twice, which cost me around ￥8,200. Plus the additional fees for this and that, I spent over ￥60,000 and used two days of nenkyu.
I was also shocked when I started practising. No matter what you see on paper, it does not really prepare you for the infuriating reality of the driving course. I recommend practising consecutively as much as possible. I went once a week and had a couple of two-week breaks because of typhoons, which was not conducive to quickly getting better. Do not head into this thinking you can do it easily. It will take numerous training sessions or tests, and will take more the longer your draw it out. One man who lived in the area practiced every day for a week and passed on his first attempt, but he lived in Matsuyama. If you can do this, I recommend it. Although the instructors are maddening at times, they will in fact let you know when you are getting better and can pass the test. I practiced more than I needed to because I absolutely wanted my license before my permit expired, but I probably could have skipped 3-4 sessions and been fine. I took my first test after not having practiced for two weeks, which made me very rusty, so don't do that if you can avoid it. I probably could have spent less money and done things better, but I also didn't spend a lot of nenkyu like Aaron because I went on Fridays which I can take off easily. I would still advocate taking at least two or three days of nenkyu and just getting it done.
- Arrive very early on the test day and practice from 8 o'clock. This will warm you up considerably and get you ready for the test.
- Get your license before late July if you can. Typhoon season can disrupt your practice sessions; it disrupted mine.
A in Misaki (Ikata)
Getting Japanese Driver's License as Experienced by a non-Japanese-speaking Canadian:
I'm one of those lucky people who happen to come from an exempt country. However, as a non-Japanese-speaking Canadian, it proved to be slightly more frustrating than I had anticipated.
The very first thing you should do is brace yourself for an onslaught of kanji. Secondly, you should know that few of the office workers will slow down their speech, even though it's obvious that you don't understand. [Note: to make this process easier, I do highly recommend having someone who can speak both English and Japanese with you at all times. However, if this is not an option, then don't fret! It's not impossible to do. Just remember to take deep breaths, and step outside for some air from time to time. ]
To begin, the Unten Menkyo Sentaa only deals with foreigners on Tuesday and Friday, from 8.30-9-30am (though if you happen to live 3 hours away, like yours truly, they will be kind enough to deal with you should you show up at 10.30am).
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE TRANSLATED LICENSE FROM YOUR HOME COUNTRY. I cannot stress this enough. To get your license translated, go to JAF (Japanese Automobile Federation) and ask for "GAIKOKU UNTENMENKYO SHO HONYAKUBON HAKKOU SHINSEISHO" – the Application form for Japanese Translation of foreign driver's license. (but, you should know that as soon as they hear you speak a little Japanese, they'll assume you can speak it very well. Be careful). It costs 3000 yen, and the wait will be about an hour. You can mail your stuff in to JAF ahead of time, making the process easier (aka: what I Should have done). My suggestion for those of you who can't speak Japanese, print off the application form - even if you're not going to mail it in - fill it out, and have it on you at all times, so when someone asks you what you're trying to do, you can just show it to them, and they'll generally guide you in the right direction.
After obtaining my translated license, I returned to the Driving center. I approached the nearest worker and showed him my translated driver's license. I found the phrase "Nihon no menkyo ga irimasu" (I need a Japanese license). While it's by no means the uber-polite Japanese that is recommended, it did get the point across.
You also need a passport-style photo (approx. 3×2.4 cm). There's a photo booth at the center, but it costs 700yen for 2 pictures. Bringing your own pictures would be optimal, but if you forgot (like me), use the booth. It's easy (with an English option), but choose the smaller of the two given sizes. (The bigger one is wrong, and you'll have to do it again).
I was sent back and forth to different windows to speak with different clerks, each time given a new paper to sign. The key: pay very close attention to hand gestures. If they point somewhere, odds are, you have to go there. Find the closest worker, show them your forms, and they should take care of you, and point you in another direction. Repeat as necessary.
I was given a small questionnaire to answer, written in English: How many hours did I practice in my home country? Who with? Did I have a written exam? etc. No problem. I had an eye exam, consisting of "The direction of the space in the letter C is facing left/right/up/down; What colour is this?" (Knowing R/L/Up/Down and red/blue/yellow is helpful, though I'm sure they know those colours in English, and I'm sure they'll understand if you point for the directions).
After that, I was given a slip of paper with a lot of kanji and some times on it. What it meant was for me to sit for about 10 minutes until they called me upstairs to watch a safety film with another driving class. Once that was finished, we sat through another speech on several driving procedures. The office worker called us one by one to exit the class with a document with our license information that he gave us (check it over, make sure it's accurate), we filed out of class to get another picture taken, then returned to the class. Another speech, then he called us to the front once more, we passed back that same document and he gave us our licenses.
I walked downstairs and immediately left the building with a breath of satisfaction.
-A
Jessamine (Ikata, Ehime)
The ALT in Misaki and I both recontracted for a second year, so we needed to get our Japanese driver's licenses taken care of. We decided to get it done during the schools' spring break when the ALT would be able to take time off more easily. What we did not foresee about this time period was that it is also the time when all the prefecture's high school students swarm the Licensing Center for their licenses. Our bosses expressed concern that we might not be able to get our paperwork in, or enough practice completed, due to the increased numbers. However, as it turned out we had little trouble, and both passed our road skills tests on the first try. (This may have had something to do with the center trying to process as many people in as short a time as possible.)
We took a Tuesday off on March 17 and went to submit our paperwork. We got there before 8:30am, so we were also able to do the interview, vision test, and written test by about noon. Although we weren't coming back for the road test till the end of the month, we decided to give the driving course a practice run with the instructors, to get an idea of what we'd have to prepare for. It was good for us to sense how strict they were and how much we had to memorize over the next couple weeks.
We scheduled our road tests for Tuesday, March 31.
I went up to the center by myself on Friday, March 27. To get there by 8:00am on public transit, I had to leave Ikata by 5:30am. (Drove to Yawatahama.) I got two practice sessions in before lunch, and was surprised at my rapidly deteriorating ability to concentrate. I took one more practice session and called it a day.
My ALT friend and I went back up to practice on Sunday, March 29. The center is closed on Sundays, and it's not possible to buy practice tickets, but the course is open and there are a couple of instructors available. We bought plenty of tickets ahead of time. I believe we did 3 practice sessions each that day, and were able to ride in the back of the car while the other person drove. This was helpful just to get the rhythm of the course ingrained.
We went in for more practices on Monday, March 30, maybe 4 each. I had been given permission to drive by myself the previous day, and the ALT got permission at the end of Monday, so we drove 20-minute sessions on our own.
We came in around 7:45am on Tuesday morning to squeeze in one more practice before the TEST. We had been under the impression that we could only do this practice on our own, but were then informed that we could go with an instructor, so we did that. It was a good thing we got there before 8am, because after we signed the sheet a few more people came to sign it; if we had been later we probably wouldn't have had time to practice.
The test was at about 10am, administered by a female police officer, and surprisingly we both rode in the car with her, taking turns taking the test. I had to back up in one of the narrow roads (nerves!), but I used proper procedure and didn't bump anything. My friend forgot some verbal signals. However, when we had finished and waited and were finally called to the window for our results, Ōnishi-san informed us that we'd both passed!
We had to wait around a bit more, return our unused tickets, fill out another form, get our pictures taken, and wait in a classroom of high school students for our licenses, but then we were finished, and exhausted.
I took about 10 practice sessions, some 30-minute, some 20-minute, but mostly with instructors. This might not have been strictly necessary, but I felt their corrections would help me more than driving by myself. Also, I was able to drive with all of the instructors, and there is quite a range of teaching/correcting styles and personalities, all of which were quite helpful.
When the whole experience was over, I felt like I'd been in a crucible. It seemed like maybe we didn't have to worry about the details quite as much as we'd been led to believe by the instructors. Then again, they have a strong sense of imparting perfection to learners, and maybe it was only our dedication to that perfection, evidenced by continuous practicing, that allowed us to get it all done in only a few days.
Before we left the center with our licenses, we went back to thank the instructors for their time and patience with us, and the last bit of advice we got was, "Drive safely, now!"
July 2009
I practiced Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday right before the test, for a total of 29 10-minute blocks (20 of those were with instructors). I practiced a lot more than anyone needs to, partly out of paranoia.
Cost: - photos: 700 - mail-in translation fee: 3380+postage - application fee: 2400 - total on practice tickets: 28300 yen - skills test fee: 4050 - issuance fee: 2100 - driving between Matsuyama city center and the driving center (assuming costs approx. 500 each way): <5000 - total: 45930
I'm an ALT who took the test during summer vacation. See if your CO (contracting organization) will let you take special leave, or "tokukyu." If they ask, say you've heard others have received special leave for the test (e.g., Ikata, Ainan, and Kuma).
Although it will make life easier to have an interpreter, I went by myself for everything. My Japanese skills are minimal, but I can read basic kanji. It's doable, but frustrating at times. No one speaks any English.
I registered on Friday and Mr. Onishi, who processed all the papers, was nice enough to let me finish everything in one day. The paperwork process and the written test went from 9:30~12:30. No need to study for the written test. It's a straightforward 3-minute quiz. The interview involved questions like how much did the license cost, what paperwork did you need for it, how many questions on the written test and how high must you score to pass, how far you drove on the test, etc. He also documents where you went and when, as stated on your passport. No clue what this is for...
The map Aaron made was the only thing I could rely on for directions. None of the instructors knew any English. So read on for copious amounts of details on the test (corresponding with the numbers on the map of the driving course, which you will have to memorize).
A few things: when you check either side of you, you have to turn your head dramatically, so instructors see you looking left and right. Take your turns really slow. You can say all the instructions in English during the test.
(1)" Left" (look at rear view mirror), "back" (look at left side mirror), "okay" (look over your left shoulder). Do the same thing with "Right back OK"
(4) Do a dramatic head-turn when you say "left right OK"
(7~9) Wait for the second street light, and then immediately start the lane change process. Always change lanes and have your car pulled straight by the time you're 4 center dashes from the turn (also applies for steps 32/33 and steps 35/36).
(8~10) Keep your right turn signal on. Slow down and look to your right for "oncoming traffic." You'll see a placard that says #3 where you turn right. Complete the turn snug against the left side and drive along it (~30 cm from the curb).
(13) Turn into the left most lane and do the left lane change process, finishing by hugging the left curb. Speed up a little for 2 seconds, then slow down soon after for step 14.
(15) Keep your left turn signal on.
(16) As soon as you finish your turn and straighten out your wheel, do the hug-the-left-curb procedure ("left back OK, signal, wait 2~3 seconds, left [look in left mirror] left [look through left window] back [look over your shoulder] okay). Always drive closely along the curb for the ~30 meters before a left turn (so scooters don't drive along your left). Speed up a little, then slow down for step 18.
(19) Turn on your left blinker (sounds like they're saying "win ka") as you drive through the first crosswalk.
(20) Slow down as you turn right, and hug the right side before you turn left in the tiny street.
(29) When you turn right, start by driving perpendicularly across the lanes and then turn right into the rightmost lane.
(34) Hug the left curb (see 16).
(36) Kind of hug the left side when you switch to the left lane.
(37) After crossing the tracks, the instructor tells you where you should park. You should start to hug the left curb. Finish with the front of the car aligned with the pole (or within 30 cm). If you hit the curb when parking, it's my understanding that you fail.
I came just after 8AM on test day. I got a practice session for 8:40~9AM. 8:30~8:40: I registered for the test. 9:10: I took the test and passed. After that, pay issuance fee at window #4, talk to Mr. Onishi for a bit more paperwork, go to the 3rd floor and wait to get some kind of secret code, have your picture taken, wait some more, and you get your license by 11:30. (The separate 1500 yen charge is a donation for maintaining Japanese roads, which you can pay if you feel strongly about the cause..)
Last note, if you practice driving with a friend, the instructor MIGHT let the friend sit in the back seat while an instructor is present in the car.
Sean (Matsuyama, Ehime) May 2010
I'm a teacher at an English Language school in downtown Matsuyama. I've been in Japan from about May 2007 to the present.
Attitude, Not Aptitude
An important note for this test is getting in the right frame of mind. If you look at this test as the instructors actually teaching you and challenging your ability to drive you will come out of this very frustrated. If you go in realizing that it's really about clocking in a certain number of hours and showing honest attempts at improving your driving ability, you will be much more relaxed. The average for this website and others I've spoken to is about 20-30 tickets worth of practice and of course the test.
Double Check Everything
I also can not stress how important it is to get your paperwork in order before you even go. My license was renewed since I've lived in Japan- as such they will require either a) 90 days of that specific license being in your home country, b) a notarized copy of your driving record or c) a previous license card. This webpage outlines all the documents you need to get this done.
Try to Interact
If you try to interact with the instructors they are actually very kind and will offer a lot of tips and hints..you've really just got to try to speak Japanese. Some examples: On the course, at number 7 on the map, you'll notice there are many tall shrubs/bushes to the left. There's a solid meter or so block where there are no shrubs (just grass)...that's where you should start the routine for number 7. That second light post is easy to see, but that empty spot is right next to the car. On certain parts that I goofed, I asked "can we go back to that part and try again?"- no problem. We even joked a little here and there. They key is communication, or earnestly trying to...and believe me, my Japanese is laughable at best. The teachers I had were also ok with stopping at points and discussing what I did right and wrong quickly before moving onto the next piece.
Also, another helpful tip they gave me was about getting a manual license- the instructor said it would take a lot lot lot more practices because there are more checks for the test and a lot more to focus on. She said the easier way is to test for automatic at the DLC and then simply take a driving test elsewhere which is significantly easier than the DLC to change to manual. She didn't pressure me at all about it, she just wanted me to know my options when I asked her about it.
Time Information:
- The number 62 bus from Shieki (Takashimaya) costs 1200 Yen for round trip, per trip. 1080 if you use an IC card. The DLC and Shieki are the start/finish points of that line.
- Practice tickets are 700 to 1100 yen each, depending on your using a teacher or not. You must use a teacher until they decide you can go it alone.
- The ticket counter has different hours than the driving teachers; You will get a paper detailing this in Japanese. It boils down to when lunch breaks and tests are.
My experience:
- I went to the center 6 times total. Once I didn't have all my paperwork in order (see above...). The second time I was able to get everything finished and buy tickets. My third, fourth and fifth time I practiced on the range. The sixth was my test.
- I practiced a total of 18 tickets worth.
- I brought a Japanese friend for translation purposes to the first three visits. It was necessary for the first two due to the paperwork and interview aspects, but on the actual range it was not necessary at all.
- My total cost was 38,530Y. 3000Y(License Translation), 700Y(Pictures), 2400Y(Application Fee), 19800Y(Practice Tickets), 4050Y(Test), 2100Y(License card/insurance/etc), 6480Y(Transportation).
Thanks again to the above, and good luck to anyone going in there! Keep a level head and have fun with it.
