What was your test to get a driver's license like?

Which one?

The car driver's license test in Germany was a written test followed by a practical test that was 45 minute drive around town, including hill starts on a steep hill because I took my test in a car with manual transmission to get a license that would include an endorsement for manual transmissions. Oh, and of course parallel parking, some out of town highway driving and all that fun stuff. That was with the examiner and my driving instructor in the car, and I apparently barely passed. Oh, and something like 20+ hours of mandatory driving instruction. No, I didn't get a free Private Pilot Certificate out of it.

Second test was to get my motorcycle endorsement - I only got my car license in Germany because I couldn't afford to pay for training for both. Once I moved to the UK, I found out that a) motorcycles made a lot more sense as daily transport there, and b) getting a license there was pretty cheap as I needed some basic instruction (CBT), then ride for a few months on your own on a small bike, and then take a driving test where you basically ride around followed by an examiner.

In the US, I had to retake the written test in NV as NV doesn't recognise EU licenses, followed by a practical driving test - aka "drive around the block, don't run over pedestrians and parallel park". Comment from the examiner was "looks like you've done this before". For the bike endorsement, I did take the MSF course because additional training never hurt anybody and it helped given my general test anxiety.

My driving test was completed on a closed course. No actual road driving. Here's the current iteration of the course:

The version that I (and all my friends) used was about half that size, which is pretty darn tight. Here's a twin of the car I used:

Yeah.  My father's '76 Suburban was a little bit shorter and easier to see out of, but the turning radius was much bigger. And for some reason, he decided that his much shorter and narrower '70 GTO (4 speed) was the wrong tool for the job. 

I breezed thru the written test and did a fine job parallel parking and 3-point-turning the Caddy on the Pinto-sized course. And then I rolled through the stop sign at the end.  Came back two weeks later, did lots of signaling and good, hard stops, and came home with a wallet-sized bad photo of myself.

I went to the school of Dad, 4 lessons, and I've been unlearning everything he told me for 35 years. I failed my first road test because you're not supposed to put your right hand through the steering wheel to turn on the directional. 

I now teach high school DE in Vermont. I feel like it was my calling. Been at it for a decade now.

The road test is too damn easy. My students do a 30 minute final drive assessment that includes a lane change/merge, state highway as well as neighborhood driving with associated speed changes, an intersection turn-around (look it up), a hill stop, and if I'm feeling especially testy the parallel park. I also have them back in and park. The DMV road test is no more than 15 minutes: left turn, right turn, stop sign, traffic light, hill start, turn-around, parallel park, and back to the DMV. If you can successfully complete my final drive assessment you should be able to sleep through the state test.

I only get 6 hours with a kid behind the wheel during the semester, yet parents are required to spend 40 hours as "driving coach." That's effed-up. Most parents are ill-equipped to teach DE. Many see it as an opportunity to get a chauffeur. Too many tell me they do not want to do it. And they pass their anxiety onto their kid.

Driver Education needs to be more comprehensive with a greater emphasis on actual driving, with time to assess and reflect on that driving (sort of, you know, like what we do to improve as autocrosses, racers, etc.!). Let your dad teach you to change a tire. I'm trying to keep you from dying.

I had my parents as instructors, and they started on me before I could talk back. The advantage of having serious driving enthusiasts for parents goes a long way. The test in Wayne N.J. was always a joke, in a little course similar to the one Uncle Dave posted. My own Austin A55 was not eligable for the road test because the hand brake was not accessable. Dad's '61 Mercury station wagon with the worked over 292 and 3 on the tree was, because bench seat....No syncro on first in that old gem either. ..Inspector, "Well son, it is a stick, you gotta show me a shift", me "There is not enough space here for 2nd gear". Inspector "You fail"... Me around the corner quickly get to 20, hit 2nd, and double clutch back into 1st.  Ruined his day, he passed me.   

       The Mercury in question, but that is not dad!

So I, uh, started my career as a licensed driver with a hit and run. Or more accurately a maybe-brush-into and run.

When went to get my license at the DMV, I started with the written test, and once it was marked a pass I was told to get my car and pull it around to meet the test-giver for the driving test. But as I was backing out of my parking space, I backed the front corner of my car into the one next to me (hey, in my defense, I'd only been practicing parallel parking), so I froze and started crying, as one does at 19.

At that point my mean boyfriend, who was the one who insisted I couldn't keep driving on a learner's permit forever (why the hell not, Tim??) slid into the driver's seat and, over my heated objections, drove me to the next town over to take the driving test, me hysterical the whole way since I knew that as soon as I showed up, they'd know I was the hit-and-run-fugitive from the first DMV. (Even though I had gotten out of my car and checked for, but been unable to find, any damage on the car I thought I'd contacted.)

I arrived at the second DMV, had them look me up to find the passed test, died a thousand deaths while they scrolled their computer... and then was told I was good to go and to meet the tester outside. She gave me the test, and I passed. It was kind of a letdown, tbh.

Margie

Used to be, not sure now, drivers ed was mandatory. That meant a week of early mornings, 4 hours each for 5 days, followed by 3 separate tests with the instructors, town, highway, and something I don't remember. That got you a permit, which then had to be used with an adult in the vehicle for 30 hours within three months. Sign it off, take a picture, there you go. That was 20 years ago, I've heard it changed. The only memorable thing was the girl doing her highway test on the same day as me was very attractive, heard she got into hard drugs later. 
 

More memorable was the motorcycle test. Written test to get a permit, legal to ride during daylight <55pmh roads with no passengers. Test at the license center when you felt ready. Around here the licenses are classed by displacement, and full approval required taking the actual test on something over 650cc. Not difficult on my Shadow 750, but there was this kid (I specifically remember thinking he must be too young, and I was only 19) turned up on an 1800cc Goldwing. He couldn't have been 130lbs, but he tossed that bike around like nothing. Perfect score. Very impressive. 
I still maintain that license, though I haven't owned a street bike in about 8 years. 

I got my motorcycle license a few years after my car license, but at the same NJ DMV in sparkling downtown Berlin NJ. Different course, though. Instead of driving around the neighborhood with an examiner, the examiner manning the line told you to drive down the street, make a left into the narrow side street, do two figure eights without putting a foot down, make a right to come back to him and park in the lot by the fence. I'd seen the test and had practiced a lot of figure eights because I was taking the test on my now-brother-in-law's very long 750 Magna. Not hard once you got used to flopping it over from side to side at walking speed.

Pretty uneventful for me. Drive, signal, turn left, flopflopflopflop, stop, signal, turn right, signal left, turn into lot, put the bike on the stand and walked back to the examiner who said congratulations and handed me a signed slip of paper to hand in for a MC endorsement. I said it wasn't very hard, do people fail? He said you'd be surprised how many people hit the fence.

In the mean time, the guy after me on the new Harley Sportster found out that straight pipes aren't legal in NJ (duh, nothing's legal in NJ), no test for you. So my now-BIL offered his bike and we watched the guy head out on his test. Drive, signal, turn left, start figure eight, go up on the sidewalk, across someone's lawn, down their driveway, put a foot down, go across someone else's lawn, put a foot down, etc. Parked the bike without hitting the fence, anyway. "Did I pass?" "What do you think?"

Payback for my smugness was when I moved to CA and they made me take the written test again. Filled it out, handed it in, and the lady shook her head and said "You didn't study, did you?" "well, no."  "Take this book and go over there and come back when you know the answers."

After finally passing I had to argue with the next lady about the M on my Virginia license, which means car + MC. In CA, M is (or was) just a MC. She refused to believe that I had a car license. "But I just drove that car out there 3,000 miles to get here" "Well, you drove it illegally!" 

I finally convinced her to call the VA DMV, but only if I made the call with my long-distance card (remember those?). It was worth paying for the call to see the DMV on hold waiting for the DMV to answer her question.

Did driver's ed as a high school class circa 1980, complete with the films from the Ohio State Police ("Signal 54", "Highways of Agony", etc.) that showed the graphic aftermath of car accidents in glorious black and white with awesome narration ("...the car went on its whirling, twirling dance of death...").

Driver's ed with an instructor over a school break, which consisted mostly of driving the instructor to a coffee shop to meet up with the other instructors in the county whose students had driven them there, too.

"Road test" on a closed course at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration in beautiful Glen Burnie, MD in my father's 1966 Dodge Dart. You had to exaggerate looking left and right at the "intersections" even though you knew there were no other cars on course. A State Trooper with no neck and no sense of humor in the passenger seat adjudicating the test. I passed, no problem. You could always tell who failed as they made you switch seats immediately, so if you saw a car being driven by the trooper back to the parent's waiting area, you knew that kid failed.

Circa 1983 in Ohio was a simple written test, had to pass like 20 of 25 or something.  I think the only question I missed was minimum tread depth.  (Still don't know.)

Then my grandpa took me to Mt Healthy for the driving test in his early 80s Chevette (he hated it, a replacement for his old 60s Ford truck with "3 on the tree").  We drove around the block, maybe 3 minutes, never got above 35mph or even a major road except where the facility was.

Came back to the parking lot for the maneuverability test (pull through the cones left or right, then back up again).  Being a car the size of a skateboard helped, I remember the guy warning me I was getting close to a cone backing up.  By then it was pouring rain, we went back to the facility, he signed paperwork and said I was good.

Grandpa was standing outside under the awning, I remember rolling the window down and saying "all set, let's go".  Didn't even get out, he got in the passenger seat and we went to the BMV for my license.

I did drivers ed through school over the summer thanks to b'day in early June.  I remember most of the kids sleeping while I was a dutiful student.  The simulators were a joke, didn't react to the screen projector so you couldn't really judge reactions.  When it came time to drive the streets almost no one in the car had driven yet.  That poor instructor.

My youngest daughter's test was interesting. We have a graduated licensing system in Ontario so this was her third and final test taking her from a G2 to a full G license.

To start off with she took her own car to the test which was a slightly lowered 5spd 2004 Toyota Echo hatchback. The test was on a Monday morning but we had an  autoslalom event that ran late the day before so her R tires were still in the back of her car. The tester did a walk around her car to make sure all the lights, horn etc worked. She said he paused at the rear of her car. She had some track outlines and a CASC sticker on her rear window. He got in and asked her a few questions about the car and her driving habits on the street.  At some point he stated that she obviously knew how to drive and he was running behind so he signed off on her test without her even starting the car.

In Maryland in the '80s it was fairly simple.

Having passed Driver's Ed, I got my learner's permit 6 months before my 16th birthday.  This entitled me to drive between 6:00a and 12:00a as long as there was a conscious, licensed adult in the passenger seat.  No specific requirements for number of hours I had to log.

For the driver's exam, there was a written test of maybe 30-50 questions.  Most were pretty easy, straight out of the Rules Of The Road pamphlet.

Once you passed that, the examiner took you to a little 1/2-acre sample course next to the DMV that had a variety of intersection types you had to negotiate.  The examiner would point you around the course at random while pretending there was traffic.  You had to parallel park between 2 cones without hitting them.

And that's pretty much it.  No public road stuff during the exam at all, though your Driver's Ed instructor had already signed off on that to let you get your permit.

The only mistake I made was to leave it in reverse with the clutch in after parallel parking.  When the instructor told me to pull out, the car eased backwards, which I immediately stopped and proceeded forward.  I didn't touch a cone so he didn't ding me for it.

I grew up in the boonies very far away from nearly all of my school friends.  I had my driver's license within an hour of the DMV opening on the day of my 16th birthday.

My first attempt at the test, I was driving a very leaky 1988 e30 convertible with sheepskin seatcovers. It was June in FL, so I went into the DMV on a nice sunny day, passed my written test and took a great photo, then we head out to do the driving test.

The FL weather had done a complete 180 in the time I was inside, and while it was now only sprinkling it had clearly just poured rain. So with the leaky top and the seatcovers that held lots of water..... The test-giver sat down into a solid 2 inches of water in the seat. I'd tried to stop her when I realized the car was full of water, but she was too quick. She leapt up, looked at me like I was a bug, and said "maybe you should just come back next week."

The worst part was that I had to retake the photo when I came back the next week, and I'd stressed out so much about it that I had a HUGE zit in the new photo. 

Okay, what was my experience like?

I failed my first test after getting into an argument with the DMV person about where to place my car on a ultra-wide two-lane road.

I took my second test in supposedly one of the areas with the highest failure rates in New York, at 9 a.m. sharp, with plenty of traffic. It was great. I cut people off, hopped curbs multiple times, but I parallel-parked like a boss. The DMV person proceeded to give me a five-minute lecture about my... umm... spirited driving. I gave the keys to my dad, thinking I had failed once again, and then looked at the piece of paper the DMV person gave me. It said I passed!

It just goes to show you that if you do whatever you do in life with confidence, it'll get you places ... and the occasional middle finger.

Got my license in 73, so I have a good excuse for forgetting most of it. I'd had my permit for a year (15th to 16th birthday), and had a lot of driving experience on road trips with dad.

We never left the parking lot, just did some turns and stops, then parallel parked. I was driving a twin to this car, manual transmission and steering, but I had driven it a lot. I had driven so much that I don't think I was nervous. I had never actually had needed to parallel park before that, but I had practiced.
 

I took drivers Ed at school later, so I would be eligible for the insurance discount.

I still feel that I got robbed from a achieving a perfect test. I took the test in my Mom's manual 4 cylinder Mustang. I'd had a lot of time behind the wheel at that point, and the test was cake. Maybe three miles at best. We left the DMV, drive through a bit of downtown, through some residential areas, and came back. Near the end of the test, we were going through a residential area that I was familiar with. At the end of the block, we came to a cross street. There was a "STOP" line on the pavement, and a stop sign pole, but no stop sign. Someone had obviously stolen it, judging by the street markings, bare pole, and my experience that there used to be a sign there, like there was at every corner in the neighborhood. So I stopped. The instructor asked me why I stopped, and I explained all of the above. "Well, there is no sign there now." And they marked me off for and unnecessary stop. I still passed easily. 

My regular driver's test was straightforward but I remember something from when I got my motorcycle endorsement.  The test was held on a small driving course, and they ran a half dozen people through at the same time.  The DMV guy stood by the side of the road and told us to make various maneuvers - start, stop, turn left, turn right, etc.  One thing we had to do was make a U-turn within a single lane of the road; there was one person there who was riding a chopper with extended forks, and it was physically impossible for that thing to turn that tight.  I assume he failed.

The only memorable thing I had was that near the end of the road test, while waiting at a stop light, the (old) guy got really quiet. I looked over to see him slumped in his seat. After a moment of panic that he'd died and I'd have to take the test over again, I heard a light snoring. I figured that meant I had passed the test. Thankfully, I also knew the way back to the DMV... Not that it was far.

My drive test involved 3 right turns in a neighborhood and a left back into the DMV. Minus 4 points for not head checking when I went to make a right turn (stupid cow - I still think she was wrong) and minus 4 points for blowing the parallel parking. I remember the parallel parking in the little Ford Econobox wagon getting marked off but thinking who cares, I'll very rarely parallel park and I can take all the time in the world in a normal situation. Cue two hours later when I successfully parallel parked the much larger 79 Impala 2 door at school on the first try in a very tight spot.

My twins got their licenses in June and I don't think they are that good, but better than the average bad driver. 50 hours of parent supervised driving in 6 months isn't too terrible, until you have to do 100 hours because you have two kids trying at the same time.

I got my learners permit the day I turned 16 and started drivers ed that night.  I believe the first thing I ever drove was an Audi 100 automatic that the drivers ed company had.  My Dad who wouldn’t have an automatic in the day, congratulated me for pointing a car down the road and told me that now I’d learn to drive a real car, specifically a ‘73 Peugeot 504 with a 4 speed.  

I picked up the clutch thing pretty quickly.  6 months later once I turned 16 1/2 I got an appointment at the Plymouth MA registry to take my drivers test.  I think NOHOME mentioned MA requiring a center handbrake when he tested, I was a few years earlier (1978) and they wouldn’t allow center consoles so the cop could reach the service brake from the passenger seat.  We ended up borrowing a neighbor’s AMC Pacer (cue Wayne’s World!) 6 cylinder auto with unassisted  4 wheel drum brakes and no power steering.  It was “interesting”.  I passed on the first try so it was worth it. 

I started driving at 11. My cousin and I used to bomb all over Edisto Island in a 1962 Chevy C10. Manual steering, I6, and a 4 speed. I did a lot of my parallel parking practice in it as well. By the time I showed up to do the driver's test, I had been driving regularly for 4 years. I'm pretty sure I was as good a driver as the lady giving the test. It was pretty anticlimactic. I don't even remember what I was driving when I took the test. It was either a 78 Econoline with a 300 I6 and a 5 speed, a 72 Opel Kadett, or a 78 Caprice. It was probably the Caprice. 

1965 in a friends mother's  '63 four door Falcon with 3 on the column.   Bummed because I couldn't use another friend's Sprite.  Thought I would die of embarassment driving the Falcon.

But... it seems at most traffic lights people yell at me saying I must have gotten my license at Sears.  

Mine was very straightforward and hard to remember as a result.  I was docked a few "points" for using the rear view mirror to back up instead of looking over my right shoulder.  I'm short and the car was a '94 Accord with the high trunk line.  Backing while looking over my shoulder would have ended with a bent bumper.

Driver's Ed was notable for one experience.  While driving on Raleigh's beltline I got a flat tire and was told to pull over.  Out of seemingly nowhere, a 20-something came jogging up to the front of the car and installed the spare tire while us students and instructor watched.  I don't know if he had a car.  May have been the ghost of a AAA roadside tech.