Got my US Driving License

February 24th, 2006 at 08:28pm

I got my US driving license yesterday. Driving in US is pretty easy, specially after driving for couple of years in India. But here, its a totally different ball game.

• Its a left-hand drive here. i.e, you drive on the right side of the road.
• The laws and the rules of the road are very clearly defined.
• Everyone is expected to obey the rules and laws. And as far as I have seen, almost everyone does
• There is proper enforcement of the law, and If you are on the wrong side of the line, you are penalised, and your wrong doings are recorded against your history!
• Everything is tracked. Your driving history, vehicle history, and you can’t escape from it!
• Almost all roads that I have seen here have proper markings on it. (lane makings, directions, signals, boards etc!, And, everything is standardized. So, you just need to learn the sign once.
• The traffic moves at pretty high speeds compared to India. i.e., the official speed limit itself is pretty high compared to the speed limits in India

But one major difference I found is … In India, you drive with the assumption that the other people on road won’t be following the rules, and you are always ready for the unexpected and you are always alert. But here, people tend to assume that the other folks on the road would follow the rules….., and by chance if they don’t follow the rule, there is a high possibility of a crash!

For e.g., here in US, at an small time cross road, If you don’t see a “Stop” sign, you are not supposed to stop, but go ahead after slowing down. You assume that the people on the cross road would stop since there would definitely be a “Stop” sign on the cross road. But if the driver on the cross road doesn’t see the stop sign, then the chances of accidents are very high! But in India, one would be very cautious at a cross road. And, I am sure my Indian driving experience would definitely help me out here!

I had taken around 6 hrs of driving lessons from an instructor over here, just to get to know the driving rules and laws etc over here. And, there is an Drivers Handbook (every state has one) too which is very useful. You can download it from http://dmv.org/

Anyways, getting the drivers license was pretty easy. First I had to give an exam (Computer based), after that I had to give an small road test, where they would test my driving skills etc. It took around 1.5 hrs in all. So, the next job is to buy a good car. Its very difficult to live in the United States without a car.

Let me know if you know of any good car deals in the Tri-Cities/Kingsport area!

Tags: DL, driving license, US, USA

Entry Filed under: Kingsport,Life,USA