Got my Thai drivers licences!

[Bumpa STIKKA]

What a palaver this was... but it could have been a lot worse!

Anyway - I'll ramble on about it in the next couple of posts!

[Bumpa STIKKA]

First off I'd like to say that it was about as hard as I thought it would be.

Non of the hurdles and obstacles thrown in front of me were a genuine surprise but one or two that I managed to cross DID surprise me!

NEVER try this on your own... You need someone Thai with you all the way through this who either loves you a lot or you are paying a lot!

First step was to go to the Thai equivalent of the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in the UK) to find out what I need to do to get the licences... (You can get two - one for cars and one for motorbikes!)

I didn't have a work permit or a retirement visa so I needed proof of address and residency. You can get this for free at the local city cop shop.

At the time I wondered why the officious chap we saw asked us to come back on Saturday. It was when we showed up on Saturday and it was his day off I realized why!

It takes a lot of time. And you DO need proof of residency. Our rent book was not enough. We had to drag our poor landlady from her business all the way downtown to the cop shop so she could state in person that I was renting her property and that I actually did seem to be there most of the time!

Luckily I am chums with her son so she didn't mind doing us this favour. He was off skiing in Switzerland (on my rent money!) but had explained to his mater what the jist of the job was and she was nice enough to take a couple of hours of work to help us out.

Once at the cop shop with all in attendance and a slightly frustrated Saturday civil servant at the desk we begun the process of creating a legal document that would appease the folks of the Traffic Office that I was a worthy candidate to be driving on their roads!

It took a very long time and a lot of 'I's were crossed and a lot of 'T's were dotted! But eventually we made it through the process and ended up with an official document that served to prove that I was resident in the fair province of Ratchaburi.

That was Saturday...

[Socrates999]

Renewed my 2 licenses last Friday. Mor Chit. Alone. Incredibly easy. The hardest part was sitting thru a 1 hour video. Needed EITHER work permit or note from embassy stating that you are a resident and where you live. 1060 THB. Special window for farangs. These days, probably harder the first time around. Really easy when I first got them 7 years ago.

[Bumpa STIKKA]

Monday morning Olay and I got up early to beat the rush at the Traffic center...

Just as well too. Mondays are apparently a nightmare to get a licence and if you are the only farang who has ever tried this at a particular office then you can expect all the legal eagles to gather round monumentally sized books of rules and regulations before they dish out the passes...

But Olay had done (almost all) her homework and I was confident. She had photocopied everything several times including my passport and UK drivers licence, etc. I also had signed every one of them.

Because I have a UK licence I didn't have to do any driving in the car or motorbike to get the pass. Which was a bit of a pisser for Olay as I had driven to the center in the car and she had followed me on the bike thinking that sometime during the day I'd need it... Ha ha! It's fookin' miles away!

I also was excused the two hour lecture as it was agreed by all that I wouldn't understand a chuffing word of it so it would have been a waste of everyone's time!

But I (along with about 100 others) still had to pass the four point test in a small class room.

The first is a color blindness test. In a small and packed classroom everyone wheels round to the front of a large color blindness chart where the instructor points a pen at a color and you say what it is. I said all the colors in English and it wasn't a problem. She either understood English or assumed that as the different noises I made matched the different colors, so I must have got it right!

The second test is one where you sit at a chair behind a pedal and a brake near your right foot. You put your foot on the accelerator pedal and when the beady green lights start shooting up the chart you switch to the brake pretty smartish or a buzzer goes off!

The third test is a kind of 'field of vision' test where two needles in the distance have to be matched by distance and you have a small hand held remote control to attempt the task.

The last test seems to be a test of peripheral proficiency where you stick your jaw into a carved out slot, focus on a yellow spot in front of you and blurt out the colors to the left and right of you as they appear. Once again I said them in English and it wasn't a problem.

All these tests take but a few seconds and you are whisked off to the paperwork section where you pay, pray and wait! The car licence is 205 baht and the motorbike licence is 155 baht.

Now... here's something interesting... My visa had actually run oit. With the type of visa I have it lasts a year but if you use it ion the last day then you can get another 90 days. Some of you will know what I'm on about. So - although in my passport my visa had actually expired at the end of January, I was still in good standing to be in the country till the end of this month, (April.)

Officially, of course, my visa was no longer any good and the lady was initially inclined to stop my application at that point. I was frustrated but I totally understood and I wasn't in the least bit mad. I was annoyed at myself that I hadn't actually thought of this before.

Olay turned to me and said that we'd have to come back another time when I had a visa that was current.

But something happened in that few seconds of deliberation which made the civil servant at the desk re-access the situation. If Olay was to go downstairs and get the actual exit stamp on my passport photocopied and signed (in duplicate) by me then actually we could proceed with the job at hand...

Now here's a big point... In all the countries I have ever visited there is always some leeway on how the law can be 'managed' or interpreted. Even in the USA I have managed to get things go my way even though it was in contravention of the letter of the rule book.

It's something that all countries (EXCEPT THE UK) have called the unwritten spirit of the law.

It seems to me that when a genuine mistake has been made or something outside of the intention of the law has happened then there is an unwritten act of human compassion that can find a way to set you back on the path of production.

And once again that beautiful feature of life outside the UK rose to greet me with a kiss!

A lot of this depends on several factors that can't be described as factual.

It's possible that the fact that I wore a nice shirt and trousers made an impression... maybe the civil servant got laid last night... maybe she just thought it was the right thing to do.

But at 10:30 I was out the door with two bits of plastic which means I can legally drive in Thailand...

[anicon]

..I'm surprised they have 2 separate licenses for auto & m/c, in the U.S it's very simple, on the front or back of the license are classes & endorsements which authorize what type of vehicle you can legally operate & are designated on the back of license by code letter..

[rxpharm]

Anicon, you always must remember TIT, this is Thailand! Don't be surprised they do things differently.

[Bumpa STIKKA]

Yes - it surprised me too...

Still - as the old tax dodger says... "on the road again..."

[f0xxee]

Hi Mate,

The only thing to watch is that us Falangs need to renew annually. WE cannot get 5 year licenses, or at least I couldn't. They give a grace period of about 3 weeks, but outside that you need to do it all over again.

[pacman]

Imagine having an accident one day after your licence expired...

The attending police officer would think all his birthdays had come at once...

[Bumpa STIKKA]

You should get a five year licence after the first year. At least that's what the nice lady told Olay when I got mine. But... TIT!

[f0xxee]

I thhnk it depends on your visa type
I went back for my second year licence and they would only give it for another year. Go figure....

[anicon]

...now you can give the whole family a ride to town Bumpa..