Nutmegger

This is a your-mileage-may-differ item -- the OP is looking at living in Fairfield County, which is a very expensive area.

Once a person becomes resident in CT, they need to obtain a CT license within 30 days. An international drivers license is not needed for the US as the original license is in English -- they are just translations.

Sooyp

Surely depends on their legal status? Referring now to the DMV website.

http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?a=805&q=244774

Sooyp

Its hard getting actual facts for this, I've a heard a number of conflicting pieces of information on obtaining a drivers licence.

kodokan

I just emailed AZ MVD a little before we moved over, and they confirmed the same day that no, they didn't recognise any overseas licenses at all, and that the second we did anything that tagged us as becoming resident (took up employment, placed kids in school without paying out-of-state rates, etc), we would legally need to take the test and get an AZ license. I expect your MVD could let you know the rules for your state?

Nutmegger

If you are resident in CT, you need a CT license. From the DMV site, "Once you have established residency in Connecticut, you have 30 days to transfer your out-of-state [or overseas] license to Connecticut":

http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?a...=|28069|#28073

Sooyp

I'll shut up then

kodokan

Bob

Nothing to do with it.

Immigration, IRS, DMV, they all have their own definitions of what a resident is.

You're resident usually as soon as you have a job, kids in school, that kind of thing as far as the DMV is concerned.

The IDP is only useful for snow birds who will only stay for 6 months on the B2 or for students, but only if they don't have the photo drivers license.

rsuzie

Thanks so much for this, it really is reassuring to get some 'inside' info. Feel a lot better now and looking forward to our look around trip.

davidsizer

Hi, we live in an area called Glastonbury which is east of Hartford. Great school area and people. Only trouble is the commute to NY is not something you could do on a daily basis.

Westchester and Greenwich are really nice areas and has the added bonus of been near White Plains airport which is a great small local airport to fly domestically. For UK return trips you are restricted to JFK.

davidsizer

Hi Sooyp, we relocated from the UK into Glastonbury about a year ago. So we are real close! I had to do a safety class (mandatory now for CT) first before doing the test. All of it was really easy. The worst part was wasting your life in the DMV. 5 hours of hanging around.

How are you finding life in Bristol? We lived in Avon and West Harford for a small period and those were really nice. Ended up in Glasto because the rental properties were limited and with my wife been pregnant at the time, found a great town home.

We struggle to find expats in the area, so if you are ever in need of some UK banter or a pint feel free to drop me a private message.

thanks
david

notonuksoil1

We are in Lower Westchester.
We originally came over in 2003 and kids were 5 and 18 months at that time so our search was based on school districts and things to do after school.

We didn't know the area at the time and found the best school district to be Bronxville in Westchester. After looking at the map we decided it was a little close to the Bronx and gave it a miss - turns out that was a mistake!!
The school district is still amazing and the town is lovely but expensive.

I'm very familiar with Bronxville, Scarsdale and Eastchester which all have excellent public schools. Plus really easy 30 minute commute into NYC at around $225 a month

Another thing to consider is what will your children do in the summer, in both Westchester and CT there are loads of country clubs and if all the kids friends belong to one then the summers can be lonely for the kids if you don't. Larchmont has the Shore Club which is great but around $14K a year plus a one off membership fee of around $25K. On the other hand you could live in Bronxville and go to the local town club Lake Isle in the summer for $650 for the family or the private Siwanoy Country Club which is a lottery win joining fee!

Two Scoops

That's not correct. The DMV text does NOT say "[or overseas]". You added that yourself and it is completely wrong!

A driver on an international license officially has a year to get a local license. In CT the international driver is not transferring a license though, he/she is starting from scratch as if a new driver.

For a new license in CT I had to complete an 8 hour safe driving class (2 x 4 hours over a weekend), then go to the DMV to do the knowledge and vision test. When I passed that I was issued an adult learner's permit which I must use for 3 months before I am eligible to take the road test. The adult learner's permit is a new rule that came in January 1, 2013. Once i pass the road test I will get a full license. The whole process is a royal pain and takes 4 months to complete.

Also, I don't think the 1 year rule is strictly enforced. I'm in my second year of CT residency and am registered and insured to drive but only now am I getting around to getting my local license.

YankeeRedcoat

Hello RSUZIE,
We are actually moving over to CT this week with two similarly aged children (5 and 7 now, but 7 yo soon to be 8). I will be working in Stamford CT so we looked in the same areas as you. Ours is a more permanent move so we are buying but we looked at Greenwich, Westport, Wilton, Darien, etc.

All of these towns have excellent state schools which is why we chose them for our short list. The state actually provides very good info on student test results by individual school so I used this with the GreatSchools info to compare, but you really can't go wrong in this part of CT if you look at the smaller towns. The state gives a standardized test which leads to students scoring of 1 (below proficient) to 5 (advanced). I assumed the higher the avg of a school the better it is able to accomodate higher perfoming students. Here are some avg scores for school districts in the area of CT you are looking at:

Grades 3-9 avg score (out of 5)
State Avg 3.7
New Canaan 4.4
Darien 4.3
Westport 4.3
Wilton 4.3
Weston 4.3
Fairfield 4.1
Greenwich 4.1
Norwalk 3.5
Stamford 3.4

Source: http://solutions1.emetric.net/cmtpublic/Index.aspx

GreatSchools avg rating grades 3-9 (out of 10)
State Avg 5.0
New Canaan 9.9
Wilton 9.7
Westport 9.5
Darien 9.4
Fairfield 8.6
Greenwich 7.8

As you can see, hard to go wrong in smaller towns. In Greenwich, the further East you go the better the school scores and GreatSchools rating. We also looked into diversity of the students as this is important to us coming from London. To be honest, not easy to find good diversity in these areas, but the school our kids will be going to is 85% white, 7% Asian/Pacific, 6% Hispanic, and 2% Black which is actually good for this area. I have a lot of school detail I downloaded (by School/Grade) that I can e-mail if you like.

We chose Westport in the end, if you end up nearby let us know as we would love to know some local Brits!

King Gimp

The one year rule isn't that strictly enforced as I don't think the cops really know the rules either. I got pulled over 14 months into my time here and while I had insurance for the car I didn't yet have a CT licence (I had a state ID/Permit only) I offered the cop my UK licence, my CT permit and my green card. He went and sat in his car for 10 minutes, then came back and wished me good day and sent me away. He seemed very confused...

The 8 hour 'safe driving course' is a complete but necessary waste of time and money. I came out of that feeling like I knew less than when I went in!