Re: USA Driving licence
 

Forgot to add, I was being silly about the road width, it was easily wide enough to not have to worry about needing to do a 5-point turn. They want to see you can do it without touching the curb and using the proper signaling. If they ask for a 3-point turn they expect you to do it, doing a u-turn would probably get you some points.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

Everyone doing the NY test has to do the 5hrs drivers ed. Most of the people in my class were either Hispanic and probably understood little English, were drunks going through relicencing, or other who had been ticketed and were doing a drivers ed instead of getting points on their license.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

One tip is to go look for you-tube videos of the test route.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

I did mine at my driving instructor's office but as Jerni says there are lots of places that do it.

That's right - you as a learner are not allowed to drive to the test, or indeed in any NYS DMV designated test area. You're not even supposed to start the engine until the examiner tells you to!

Edit to add: whilst there are plenty of places to do the five hour course, I understand that the closer you are to NYC, the longer the wait for an appointment to take the road test. Consequently people from the city often go to Westchester or Putnam counties to do the road test. I did mine at Yorktown Heights in Westchester. I booked about a month in advance through my driving instructor who provided his car, gave me an hour's brush-up lesson before-hand concentrating on the parallel parking and 3-point turns and then drove me to the test site.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

That's right. I lived in Westchester Co, actually Valhalla, and back in 2001 it was easy to book the 5hr drivers ed in late November, just a couple of weeks after I arrived, but a local road test was going to be late February or March, 3+ months later! :blink: ..... Mrs P looked on line for me, looking further and further North and West, until she found that I could do the test the following week (early December) in Herkimer. :)

Re: USA Driving licence
 

The Oregon drive test is really difficult! I was okay with the eight right turns but they also wanted me to turn left three times!:wink_smile:
The manoeuvre was to pull over, reverse a little and then drive off.

If you can drive in the UK and have a basic understanding of US roads you can pass your test. Do add in extra looking over your shoulder rather than using the perfectly good mirrors though, they seem to like that.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

Pulaski's advice, certainly in our case, is spot on in Georgia. It was not physically possible for us to complete our driving test within the required 30 day period of arriving in Georgia. It took a couple of weeks to get our social security numbers, then drove up to Cumming (don't laugh), Georgia (our local preferred DMV center) to take the knowledge test, which was fairly straight forward, but then the earliest date available to take our practical test was outside of the 30 day limit.

Although we were in the "legal grey area" we were extra careful and figured if we did get stopped we could at least produce our temporary Georgia license (you get that after completing the knowledge test) together with our full UK license. We were also fully insured to drive on our UK license and could also show them our appointment slip for our road test. So "in theory" hopefully we had enough paperwork in the glove box to satisfy an officer of the lewer.. but also glad we never had to test that theory. Luckily we both passed the practical driving test first time, which looking back was easy enough, but nerves don't make it feel that way at the time.

Also, contrary to many posts on the forum, we were never asked to surrender our UK driving licenses so still carry both.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

You might want to try New Jersey. No driving test required, just a eye and theory test....pretty easy really.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

Wow! what is the standard of driving like in New Jersey then? It's terrible around here.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

I think he meant that NJ is (I think) the only state that will accept a UK licence in lieu of taking the road test.

Re: USA Driving licence
 

Biggest challenge is avoiding pot holes & taxi drivers! Best to avoid driving altogether which is of course entirely possible and preferable in a big city. Drive defensively and you'll be fine!

Re: USA Driving licence
 

ah right!... that makes more sense :blink: