Today after many years of nagging her, she's off to Mae Tang to do her driving test (Chiang Mai too hard apparently).

Yep, she drives the car up there and fails! 30km each way.

 

So she gets an official letter giving her permission to drive a car unsupervised for the next 90 days while she can repeat the tests as often as she likes. No charge, and at the end of 90 days, if she still can't pass, they'll give her another 90 days.

 

Gotta love Thailand!

Learn while you drive.

Two of my wife's family bought new cars without knowing how to drive. Learn while you are learning to drive your new car. Neither of them can drive properly after years of being on the road.

She probably used the indicators and they failed her

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Today after many years of nagging her, she's off to Mae Tang to do her driving test (Chiang Mai too hard apparently).

Yep, she drives the car up there and fails! 30km each way.

 

So she gets an official letter giving her permission to drive a car unsupervised for the next 90 days while she can repeat the tests as often as she likes. No charge, and at the end of 90 days, if she still can't pass, they'll give her another 90 days.

 

Gotta love Thailand!

Learn while you drive.

Is the driving test centre taking advice from UK immigration lawyers?  Arrive in the UK by boat, get ordered to leave, appeal that decision, get told again to leave, appeal that decision etc etc

 

Yes, my comment is totally off-topic, but I couldn't resist the similarities!

I've had cataract surgery which required me to rely on Thai family members to drive me to my appointments.

Drove with my son, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. My sister-in-law was by far the best driver.  My son and brother-in-law are everything I complain about on the Thai road, except I got to see in from the inside of the car.  They have no concept of right-of-way, they can't merge into traffic, accelerate at a snail's pace to get on the highway and then finally end up driving too fast or too slow, brother-in-law did the old "drive for a kilometer with one tire on the shoulder and one on the road, as well as making a left hand turn out of a gas station onto the highway, came to a full stop and waited for the color and consistence of the air to be "just right" and failing to pull out when there was no oncoming traffic, and then finally turning onto the highway by pulling in front of oncoming cars, and none of them had any real concept of situational awareness or being able to read the road.  

Just scary.  Bad drivers teach bad drivers how to drive - or - they make up their own rules and drive however they see fit. And the government doesn't do anything to screen bad drivers out.  Can't drive?  Here's a 90 permit to drive.  Come back and try again in three months.  Gawd.  🙄

1 hour ago, scubascuba3 said:

She probably used the indicators and they failed her

She didn't get as far as the driving bit.

8 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

She didn't get as far as the driving bit.

Oh my! 

And we wonder why so many people drive off multistory car parks or through a market.... i.e. paniking and using both the brake and the accelerator at the same time.

 

Thai-bash aside - Most Thai's are perfectly compitent and safe drivers, most are calm and polite enough... But there is just a nominally higher percentage of the complete loons to tailgate, jump lights and driver with reckless impunity - this allows for confirmation bias that 'most or all Thai drivers are very poor' but in reality that isn't the case... Most I find are quite decent....

 

The loons - as described earlier, really need dealing with though - something that ever other police force in the world (I think) does, that is not practiced here... Patrolling and pulling over vehicles for reckless or careless driving - that just doesn't happen, and these idiot are only dealt with when they can't get away with brake-failure excuse after wiping out an innocent family on a motorcycle. 

My wife's family have all been to Lamphun and passed - your wife  should try there.....

The wife went to a private motoring school with instructors and its own driving course.

For the practical test they had to make one circuit of the course, do a hill start (on the flat) and reverse into a side opening, but got 3 attempts.

For the theory, they all went through the questions and the correct answers before taking the actual online test with the same questions and answers.

12 enrolled for the course.
2 failed the practical.
7 failed the theory test.
The 3 that passed were all women, one of whom was the wife.

 

Since then, her driving skills have improved dramatically ........ under my supervision.

5 years ago, I drove the wife's daughter (35 yo) 8 times to a driving school with "track" in central province. 90k's round trip. They cut their losses and gave her a licence after damaging 6 gearboxes. She has never driven since.🙃🙃

Wife's daughter failed the theory test 3 times, then passed on the fourth attempt - all on the same day.

Pattaya DLT.

8 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Today after many years of nagging her, she's off to Mae Tang to do her driving test (Chiang Mai too hard apparently).

 

Maybe....

 

She was too GRUMPY to pass the test.

 

As I recall from what you stated, in a past comment.

 

But, who knows?

 

 

In 2017 I did motorbike license with theory and "driving test".

Since then I even better understand what happens on the roads here.

Better don't think too much about it.

The exact opposite/extremes:

Switzerland, cost up to 4000 Swiss francs (up to 5000 US). Germany about the same.

The ole lady paid 4500 baht for a service, van packed with people taken to land office. They took written test for her, walked her through the rest. Came home with DL.

Off-topic, but I recall taking my 'big bike' motorbike test back in the UK about 1977 during the winter. The roads were icy and a terrible risk for a motorbike to slip over.

 

"Now Mr Luttrell, I am the test examiner.  Please drive round these roads and at some point I will jump out from behind a tree in front of you and you must do an emergency stop..."

 

That didn't end well 🤣

a

On 9/29/2025 at 11:06 AM, BritManToo said:

Today after many years of nagging her, she's off to Mae Tang to do her driving test (Chiang Mai too hard apparently).

Yep, she drives the car up there and fails! 30km each way.

 

So she gets an official letter giving her permission to drive a car unsupervised for the next 90 days while she can repeat the tests as often as she likes. No charge, and at the end of 90 days, if she still can't pass, they'll give her another 90 days.

 

Gotta love Thailand!

Learn while you drive.

 

I suppose this makes sense. Since cars are not provided and she has to come in her own, why should your wife be penalised for trying to get a licence and providing her own vehicle?

 

Very sensible.