German Driver's License Dilemma

According to the Hamburger Abendblatt, in 1999 42.5% of 39,418 people failed to pass their German driving test. The average for Germany is 26.2% failures including first-time applicants and repeaters. Hans-Detlef Engel, head of the local driving school association, has several reasons for Hamburg's low scores. He says driving school instructors teach students about rights but not responsibilities; he blames foreigners who "have a different concept of law and order." Heinz-Jürgen Wallfried, from Hamburg's testing center says that large cities always have a higher quota of failures, e.g., Berlin with 38.8%. Driving is more stressful in big cities.

This sounds reasonable but cannot be the whole story. When U.S. citizens, who have driven for years, fail a German driving test for no particular, believable reason, one must suspect that the real relationship is between driving teachers and examiners and money. In order to take the test, one must provide a driving teacher and his car. Where to get such a teacher with car without signing up for driving lessons? As the pupil, you are at the mercy of the driving teacher, who will arrange for your test when he thinks you are ready, i.e., have spent enough money in his school. A pupil who fails is fodder for more lessons; costs can easily go beyond DM 2000. (1000 USD) (My note: It costs a German in Ohio less than $50.00 and a day!!)

How To Germany magazine says in the Summer 2000 issue, "In view of the fact that so many experienced drivers are now required to take the driving test, some schools have set up simplified courses for new residents. If a school tells you it doesn't offer such a course, find one that does. The new resident course will cost you about DM 450 whereas a full course can be as much as DM 2500." Has anyone in Hamburg had the fortune to find a simplified course for under DM 500? If so, please tell us about it.

As U.S. citizens, we must acquire a German driver's license within six months of residing in Germany in order to drive legally. So far, 20 U.S. states have complete reciprocity with Germany: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah (the very first to allow reciprocity), Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico. Ten more states have partial reciprocity, requiring only the written test: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon and Tennessee). Note that highly populated states such as New York, California, Ohio and Texas are not on this list.

We must achieve total reciprocity. There are two long-term actions we must take. Both involve writing letters and lobbying. First: we can contact our congressperson and insist on reciprocity with Germany. This means that Germans living in our home state will be exempt from taking that state's driving test as well. This means finding a local congressman who is sympathetic to the woes of expatriate citizens. Tell him that even expatriates vote in U.S. elections. Hope that this congressperson has occasionally left the state, might even have a passport, might even have visited a foreign country.

Second: investigate the laws in other European Union countries. This reciprocity thing is set for all EU countries, but the application process may not be. Are there countries where applicants may register themselves, bypassing the driving school instructor? If so, we must convince local legislators that this must be possible in Germany also.

In Paris representatives of eight American organizations met with the U.S. consul general to draw up a plan of action. What can we do in Hamburg?