driving in germany for dave2

dave i just read a story in a canadian newspaper that stated that the driving test to qualify for a permit in germany was so tough, and required a ton of study, that the US armed forces had complained to the german gov"t, that their members & spouses were having a hard time passing, and there fore could not drive !!!!!!!
comment ? could it be that hard ? i mean , jeez here in ontario , canada , a pretty sharp border collie could pass the written part, and if he could reach the pedals, probably the in car part too!
bob

Your dog could drive better than a lot of folks I see. What is scary is that 1 out of 5 drivers don't have a license here. Or insurance.

Where are you and where is your law enforcement?

Unless something has changed in the SOFA (status of forces agreement) GI's don't take the German test. I was stationed in Europe I had a USAFE (United States Air Forces in Europe) driving permit stamped "Greece only" that I had to listen to a local conditions briefing and pass a test to get, once I passed the test I was the guy that played the video, gave the briefing and administered the test. When I went TDY to Germany to drive I needed either a German translation of my Michigan driver's license, an international driver's license that I could obtain from Triple A or a USAFE driver's permit without the restriction or a German endorsement. Was this enforced? not really, I rented a car and went to Luxemburg, trying to get Back into Germany I got stopped, between the Michigan license, the Greece only USAFE permit, my passport and copy of TDY orders they let me back in no questions asked or to quote "is goot ja". Many of our SOFA treaties basically mirror privileges meaning if you can do it at home you can do it in the host country. This was interesting and allowed us to do things in Greece most Greeks couldn't, and Greek military members stationed in the US enjoyed similar privileges they had in Greece.

(quoted from post at 11:48:24 09/04/12) dave i just read a story in a canadian newspaper that stated that the driving test to qualify for a permit in germany was so tough, and required a ton of study, that the US armed forces had complained to the german gov"t, that their members & spouses were having a hard time passing, and there fore could not drive !!!!!!!
comment ? could it be that hard ? i mean , jeez here in ontario , canada , a pretty sharp border collie could pass the written part, and if he could reach the pedals, probably the in car part too!
bob

Click to expand...

Kind of true....... but not 100%..................

If an American service member or spouse/family come over with a valid license (car, MC, etc), they can take the US forces class and test (little more involved than most Stateside tests) and be issued a US forces license that allows them to drive in europe. If they don't have a license, they are on their own to either take the German course (few thousand bucks, hours of driving in all situations, and a big test in both written and driving in the German language) and get a license.....

Sounds like you are in Oklahoma. Since 1 out of 5 are illegal and don't have a license or insurance it means they have to steal their tags from the 4 out of 5 that are legal. And that's about how many we lose off our trucks every year.

I think it is partially a factor of expense that makes the German license difficult. My mother hosted 3 of my German cousins for a year of high school over here and they all took Driver"s Ed and obtained US licenses for next to no cost. Last one was probably 8-9 years ago. Returned to Germany and received German licenses through some sort of reciprocity agreement and did not have to absorb the costs somehow.

~Kirk

like dave2 said part true but not all

If they have a stateside license US forces do have to take a fairly stringent (when compare to state tests) written and sign test. This is a US Military administered test as wisebaker described.

the issue most people have with this test is the right of way and priority road questions. These concepts are different / unheard of if you've never driven there before and require a slight amount of study to answer correctly.

the larger issue with driving in Europe comes if a service member or dependent doesn't have a US license to begin with. If you don't have a US License you have to do the entire process through the German system and that is very expsenive and complicated and not doable for an 18 year old brand new service member or their spouse.

and the above process is only for personal vehicles. tactical vehicles are another process and non-tactical government vehicles are yet a third and even more complicated process.

I have expended much energy ensuring my soldiers have the right drivers license to stay out of trouble.


Paul

Kind of true....... but not 100%..................

If an American service member or spouse/family come over with a valid license (car, MC, etc), they can take the US forces class and test (little more involved than most Stateside tests) and be issued a US forces license that allows them to drive in europe. If they don't have a license, they are on their own to either take the German course (few thousand bucks, hours of driving in all situations, and a big test in both written and driving in the German language) and get a license.....

Click to expand...

Things definitely have changed in a short time.
I had an international drivers license issued through SOCOM and I never had to take a test in any country.
Except when I got out.
My home state, where I got my license at 16, had no record of me ever having a driver's license. :shock:

(quoted from post at 12:51:19 09/04/12) Sounds like you are in Oklahoma. Since 1 out of 5 are illegal and don't have a license or insurance it means they have to steal their tags from the 4 out of 5 that are legal. And that's about how many we lose off our trucks every year.

Click to expand...

Nope. Michigan. I've been surprised at how many folks drive illegal. Economics plays a factor, but drunk driving laws are another. My wife got hit by a drunk driving BACKWARDS down a road. Found out later he hadn't had a license in 12 years, he got caught, even went to jail, but still kept drinking and driving. One neighbor lost his license because he was a deadbeat dad, they can take your license for failure to pay child support. Most of the goofs are driving cars registered to relatives or friends. I think there are so many they can't arrest them all, they give them a ticket, they get more points on the record, maybe not even pay the ticket.

I was the detachment safety officer so I got to teach the local conditions course, I really didn't think it was that hard of a test and don't ever remembering anyone failing it. I taught about the different signs, the priority road designations how to convert KMH to MPH and since it was Greece reminded everyone how slick roads made from marble chips were when wet and that for the most part they were second generation drivers and traffic was a lot different in that mule carts were allowed on the national highways. It's coming back yes you had to have a stateside license to get a permit through the military, it was never an issue because they required you to get a US driver's license before you were shipped overseas. This caused some problems when some of our Airmen that didn't ship cars over decided to buy motor bikes on the economy, we had to inform them that they had to complete the Air Force motorcycle safety course at our support base to ride them and the support base couldn't schedule the class until they provided a copy of their stateside license with the appropriate cycle endorsement. They did find a loophole in that most states will allow you to operate a Mo-ped on a regular driver's license, then we were over run with mo-peds on det until one of our SPs tangled with a Greek dump truck and got messed up pretty bad. He was initially treated in a Greek hospital, he wasn't thrilled about the quality of care. Of course he was transported down to the USAF hospital at Athens as soon as he was stable. IIRC he was eventually air-vac'd to Landsthul RAMF in Germany. A lot of our people sold their mo-peds shortly after that. I don't remember us doing any training, testing or issuing driving permits when I was in Saudi Arabia but I don't think we had much of a SOFA their. On the exchange students the program we participated in (open door) at home in Michigan pretty much prohibited them from driving or learning to drive but I did hear of some exchange programs that would allow it if the driver's ed was class/program at the school were they were enrolled. We sponsored students from Israel and Sweden and what they were allowed and not allowed to do varied by the home country they came from.

As mentioned, it has been a few years. Cousins were not part of a formal exchange program, family members came and lived here for a year and attended school, learned about US culture (at least our family"s limited version of it), met/visited most of the extended family spread throughout the country, etc.

Just remember the driver"s license deal balancing a significant portion of the cost involved.

~Kirk