I decided about two months ago that it would be a good idea
to get a South African drivers license. This decision was largely based on the
fact that I will be living here for at least one more year and that car
insurance here is going to be a lot cheaper here than in the states. How hard
could it be, I can learn to drive on the other side of the road. I was to
quickly learn that getting your driver’s license here isn’t quite the same as
getting it in the States…
Allow me to introduce you to the K53. Somebody’s great idea of what ‘safe driving’ looks like.
According to this manual (which is what the test is based off of), safe driving
means looking anywhere except forward. Mirror, check, check. Break, mirror.
Blind spot, turn signal, blind spot, mirror. 360. Check, check, check. Break. Your.
Neck.
So apparently the only way to pass this test is to find a
driver instructor. Easy enough, I see driving school cars all over PE. I’ll
just find one online, take 5 or 10 classes, I’ll be good to go. One afternoon,
I do some googling on my phone to find a driving school. I find this great,
organized website. Super legit. I call and set up a 10 class package for R100 a
class (about $12 a class). Sweet. Meet Belinda, the driving instructor from
this upstanding establishment. The first time I met her, she was 15 minutes late
for our first lesson, wearing sweats, her car was a bit of a mess, she didn’t have
any sort of driving school branding on her car, but I decided to give her the
benefit of the doubt. We spent the hour driving around as she rather abruptly
barked the K53 commands, “Brake. Mirror. Check. Check. Blind spot. Clutch
control. 360. Check”. Head spinning, I paid her for my 10 class package and
went back inside. After a bit of scheduling confusion, I met her for my second
class at Walmer (where she was very quick to express her sentiments on the “weird
language my black students spoke”… Righttt). Second class, check. Later in the week
I tried texting her to change the time we had set up. Then calling. Then
Whatsapping. Then calling agan. Bye bye Belinda. Bye bye R800. Never heard from
her again. My own fault I suppose for paying her upfront.
Anyways, I now have approximately 3 weeks until I take the
worlds most intense driving test. I still do not know how to properly complete
my parallel parking, alley docking, or 3 point turn (all within their painted
boxes). Nor do I have any idea how the “Emergency Stop” works. And I certainly
had NO clue what the long inspection check-list entailed that I had to
verbalize before I could even get into the car. Insert EC Driving School and my
best friend for the next 3 weeks, Niels. A 65 year old, fat, Afrikaans man who
is going to make me a professional driver. When I met Niels and told him that
my test was scheduled for less than 3 weeks time, he nearly fell out of his
seat. When I told him which town I was taking it in, he took me to the biggest
hills in PE, made me stop on the side and said “Go.” Luckily, I had gotten a
bit of hill practice already, and was ready to wow him with my clutch
control/handbrake releasing skills. After passing Niels first test, the ice was
broken, and I became the best foreign driving student he’d ever had (the Norwegian
lady he was teaching was still driving in the flower beds after 22 lessons). When
I would nail my parallel parking he would rejoice in Afrikaans phrases “Baie Goed!” or little gems like “America’s got talent!”
When the big day arrived Niels was at my flat bright and
early to get me to my driving test. He prepped me the whole way there and
reminded me of the long list of things not to do. We drove around the town and
the normal course they take you through once before heading to the waiting
room. At 9:00am sharp I am greeted by Buela, the awful lady who administered my
learners test (what a name, right?) Buela curtly gave me the “driving test”
monologue that she probably gives 6 times a day, and not a word more. If I wasn’t
nervous already, I was now… I had 45 minutes with Buela inspecting the car,
completing my 3 forms of parking, starting on an incline, and then driving
around the town of Uitenhage. She continued to remain entirely silent except to
tell me when to turn, to call out my emergency stop (and then to tell me that I
really should be stopping with her
voice… because it’s so easy to predict when you’re going to talk), and to smirk
and tell me I’m driving too slow. She had me pretty nervous by the time we got
back to the drivers office and Neils could tell. I must have looked scared because the first
words out of his mouth were, “what did you do??” I told him I had no idea,
thought I nailed it, but Buela wasn’t really the easiest to read emotionally.
After processing some paperwork, tallying some numbers, whining that she hadn’t
eaten anything today (she’s human!!), and taking my fingerprints, she hands me
a piece of paper and in the most mundane office voice you can imagine, tells me
“You passed.” Woooohooo! Thank you Buela. I went back into the waiting room to
relieve Niels of any concern and get my new South African drivers license.
It was one of the funnier, more difficult, and more time consuming
side projects I have taken on here, but certainly one to be remembered. Lesson
learned- if it can be avoided, get your driver’s license in just about any other
country than South Africa! Now off we go folks…
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