Driver Licence Test

[carbon]

Hi,

anyone has taken the driver licence test at Bangkok's Land & transport Department ( written & driving ) ? Please share ur experience !

Thank u

[pontious]

You will get a better response if you post in 'Thailand Motor Forum'.

[Crossy]

You will get a better response if you post in 'Thailand Motor Forum'.

I'll move it there

[Tod Daniels]

I just went to Soi 99 on Tuesday to trade my old style thai driver's license in for the new smart card.

I also took two friends with me to get thai driver's licenses. They already had valid licenses from their perspective countries so were not required to take a written test, a driving test, nor watch the two hour thai only movie.

If you hold a valid license from your country you're just using it to obtain a thai license. They don't even take your license; just issue you a year long thai one. FWIW most countries issues only once license and it can be for a motorcycle and a car combined but in thailand they are two different licenses. Neither person I went with had both moto and car, only car, but I told them to say they had both, as the thai officers can't read english on the licenses. They got both the motorcycle license and the automobile one issued without a problem.

Make sure if you want both a car and moto license you tell them when you start the testing process; because you must have two score sheets and two sets of paperwork.

You need the following paperwork;

*Letter from Immigrations, your embassy, your landlord, or your local police stating you live in thailand

*Have ANY visa other than a tourist or visa exempt (copies of your work permit if you have a B visa)

*Health Certificate from a local clinic

*Copies of your passport picture page, the page with your current visa, and the departure card.

There is a series of 4 tests you take. They give the test in groups of about 20-30 people and while you are waiting for your group to be called you watch a movie that shows how to do the tests.

1) Depth Perception; where there are two sticks in a box and you use a joystick to move one forward or backward until you think it is directly beside the other stick. Then you raise your hand.

2) Color Perception; there is a chart with red yellow and green circles on it, the officer points to one and you say the color it is. Speaking english words for the color is fine.

3) Reaction Time; there is a gas and brake pedal on the floor, and a speedometer on the wall, you push the gas pedal to start the speed going up, then before it redlines you press the brake pedal.

4) Peripheral Vision; there is a set of goggles you look into and the officer will light up red, yellow or green lights at the edges of your vision. You call out red-right, green-left, as you see the lights light up.

Listen there is NO english what so ever out there other than a sign that says TOILET. If you can't speak thai, my advice is take someone who can or be prepared to have a tough go of what counter to go to, what to do, and which forms you need to fill out.

I'm trying to coordinate taking a group of people out there in the next few weeks to get their thai licenses, as once you've been there and know the drill it's pretty easy to shepherd people thru the process.

Hope it helps..

[Tanaka]

I just went to Soi 99 on Tuesday to trade my old style thai driver's license in for the new smart card.

I also took two friends with me to get thai driver's licenses. They already had valid licenses from their perspective countries so were not required to take a written test, a driving test, nor watch the two hour thai only movie.

If you hold a valid license from your country you're just using it to obtain a thai license. They don't even take your license; just issue you a year long thai one. FWIW most countries issues only once license and it can be for a motorcycle and a car combined but in thailand they are two different licenses. Neither person I went with had both moto and car, only car, but I told them to say they had both, as the thai officers can't read english on the licenses. They got both the motorcycle license and the automobile one issued without a problem.

Make sure if you want both a car and moto license you tell them when you start the testing process; because you must have two score sheets and two sets of paperwork.

You need the following paperwork;

*Letter from Immigrations, your embassy, your landlord, or your local police stating you live in thailand

*Have ANY visa other than a tourist or visa exempt (copies of your work permit if you have a B visa)

*Health Certificate from a local clinic

*Copies of your passport picture page, the page with your current visa, and the departure card.

There is a series of 4 tests you take. They give the test in groups of about 20-30 people and while you are waiting for your group to be called you watch a movie that shows how to do the tests.

1) Depth Perception; where there are two sticks in a box and you use a joystick to move one forward or backward until you think it is directly beside the other stick. Then you raise your hand.

2) Color Perception; there is a chart with red yellow and green circles on it, the officer points to one and you say the color it is. Speaking english words for the color is fine.

3) Reaction Time; there is a gas and brake pedal on the floor, and a speedometer on the wall, you push the gas pedal to start the speed going up, then before it redlines you press the brake pedal.

4) Peripheral Vision; there is a set of goggles you look into and the officer will light up red, yellow or green lights at the edges of your vision. You call out red-right, green-left, as you see the lights light up.

Listen there is NO english what so ever out there other than a sign that says TOILET. If you can't speak thai, my advice is take someone who can or be prepared to have a tough go of what counter to go to, what to do, and which forms you need to fill out.

I'm trying to coordinate taking a group of people out there in the next few weeks to get their thai licenses, as once you've been there and know the drill it's pretty easy to shepherd people thru the process.

Hope it hels..

Way to go! So now your friends have licenses to ride motorcycles in Thailand without any experience whatsoever. That is real smart. If they are dumb enough to use those they are likely to add to the 13.500 motorcyclists killed every year here!

[elkangorito]

So, even if one can't ride a motorcycle OR has had little experience riding a motorcycle, one should LIE about their history?

Ok. I know that Thai drivers/riders are crap but does this excuse the farang?

It seems to me that circumventing the idiot rules here will only endorse the amount of incompetent people on the roads.

[longball53098]

I am very surprised that the office allowed them to get MC licenses with no proof of having a valid permit in the home country. Usually they will not accept just a home country license without an accompanying IDP that shows both MC and auto licenses.

When I applied 3 years ago I had to take the MC practical test as my IDP did not validate I had a MC license

[Tod Daniels]

OFFICIAL RETRACTION:

Evidently my off the cuff observations concerning the ability (or lack thereof) for thai officials to read engrish was misinterpreted as condoning and/or advocating doing something illegal as far as obtaining driver's licenses. (Shamefully in re-reading my post I must say it does appear to seem that way).

That was certainly NOT my intent, and I was pointing out what I saw as a short coming in the system of license conversions from foreign countries into a thai license.

To the posters who mentioned the irresponsibility of foreigners to hold a moto-license without taking a proficiency test; I won't even begin to go into the number of thais I see who are FAR too young to ride a moto-cy, (often having to jump off when they stop because their feet don't even touch the ground) yet drive all the time nor the number of thais I know personally who don't even have a car or moto license yet drive day in day out.

Please obey the rules no matter how whacky and/or nonsensical they are sometimes. As this is the glorious "Land 'O Thais", the indigenous natives are free to make up what ever rules they want (something to do with this being their country and all)..

(Sorry again for my bad advice)

[carbon]

OFFICIAL RETRACTION:

Evidently my off the cuff observations concerning the ability (or lack thereof) for thai officials to read engrish was misinterpreted as condoning and/or advocating doing something illegal as far as obtaining driver's licenses. (Shamefully in re-reading my post I must say it does appear to seem that way).

That was certainly NOT my intent, and I was pointing out what I saw as a short coming in the system of license conversions from foreign countries into a thai license.

To the posters who mentioned the irresponsibility of foreigners to hold a moto-license without taking a proficiency test; I won't even begin to go into the number of thais I see who are FAR too young to ride a moto-cy, (often having to jump off when they stop because their feet don't even touch the ground) yet drive all the time nor the number of thais I know personally who don't even have a car or moto license yet drive day in day out.

Please obey the rules no matter how whacky and/or nonsensical they are sometimes. As this is the glorious "Land 'O Thais", the indigenous natives are free to make up what ever rules they want (something to do with this being their country and all)..

(Sorry again for my bad advice)

Please let me know anything u know about the driving and written test !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank u in advance

[Gobbledoc]

Post #402 on this other Thai Visa link answeres you question, below is a excert.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Applying-1-a...42#entry2225142

"They took registration for the car test first, then bikes, with everyone given the usual laminated numbered card. I guess there were about 20 of us for the bike test and I ended up last, since I couldn't be arsed to run to the counter. Went next door with the whole group to watch an 'instructional video,' which was cancelled after about 30 seconds, presumably because no-one could be bothered to watch it and the girl took us back next door to pay for the bike hire (50 bht - cars can be hired for 100 bht). Went outside where it was explained (entirely in Thai) what was expected of us: drive thorough a bendy road thing without falling off; drive along a surprisingly narrow raised concrete thing without stopping/putting your feet down/coming off the concrete thing; make your way through some small mock-up 'streets' observing the stop signs, indicating, observing the general rules of the road etc. It was all fairly simple, except the raised concrete bit, which was surprisingly tricky, particularly as I had a bike with a sticky throttle. After 3 rubbish attempts at this, and assuming I'd failed, the guy in charge of this bit (really top man) told me to go and change bikes, which I did and completed this without further incident. The rest was very simple. I would say though, if you haven't been on a bike for a while (as I haven't, apart from a few days on Koh Chang a few weeks back), it's probably worth practicing for the 'raised concrete bit' if you don't want to make an arse of yourself the first couple of times (as I did)."

1 Question I have is when getting a Certificate of address in Thailand form your Embassy in English, does that have to be translated into Thai and then have to be certified by that mob up on ChungWattna Road? I believe that the free letter formt he dept of immigration takes 3 weeks.

[Spoonman]

Please let me know anything u know about the driving and written test !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank u in advance

Today ive been and done the driving and theory test for vehicles, it was painful real painful, the video (all in thai) went for nearly an hour, followed directly by a lecture (all in thai) that went for 1.5hrs.

A quick ciggie break then it was onto the theory test, this was computerized and a selection of languages available including English, Thai and japanese.. this test was a wank, the language translation into english was not of a real high standard and the rsulting questions and answers (multi choice) made little to no (common) sense and as such i failed, the pass rate is 23/30 i got 22/30.

Luckily, i was shown the incorrect answers and after a short wait was allowed to have a second attempt.

This time i passed.

The driving test was dead easy, drive in and parralel park, reverse out the turn right, drive down approx 70 metres between a row of markers, then reverse back out.

Turn left and do a reverse park into a 3 sided barrier, drive foward out to the bottom of the test area turn around then back out to the startline.

As my licence (Thai) had expiried 18months prior i was generously offer the option of a 5 yr licence, i wasted no time in handy over the 500b, for an extra 100b, you can get the 'smart' licence.

I highly reccomend sourcing an international drivers permit to gain your licence here as the intital video then lecture was extremely mind numbingly boring, then follwed by a test that made no common sense....... i was ready to walk out.

I got there at 8.30am this morning, i got back to the office at 4.00pm.

My work collegue had an IDP, he was back in the office at 9.30am.

[dugout4]

for an extra 100b, you can get the 'smart' licence? whats this?