Thai Driver'S Licence (Without International Licence)

[SlyAnimal]

As per the title, I just got my Thai drivers licence today, and thought that I'd share, since I know even some of my friends who have been living, and driving, here for a long time, still haven't gotten theirs (And those who do, mostly just used an international licence to start the process, rather than the Thai test)

I did mine at Suwannaphum in RoiEt, where we weren't approached for any "VIP queues" or similar in order to fast track our licence for a small fee (Apparently our area isn't very corrupt lol), so don't anticipate that you can just easily buy your licence anywhere.

What we did (As my gf got her licence at the same time):

We went to the Land Transport Authority office, we arrived there around 8:30am

I brought my:

Passport (They required a photocopy of the front photo page only)

Work Permit (They required a photocopy of the front photo page + the part listing my address. A housebook or letter from immigration confirming your address would probably suffice though)

Medical Certificate (My gf didn't have one, but luckily you could purchase doctor's certificates there, without the need for a physical examination lol, wouldn't count on this everywhere though)

So not many documents required, we gave those to the staff in one of the little windows, then went upstairs to start doing the tests:

Colourblind Test - On the wall was a huge amount of yellow, red, blue and green dots. The lady would point to them, and get us to say the colour, she wanted them done quite quickly

Reaction Test - They got us to sit down with some pedals at our feet. When you press on the accelerator, a green light comes on. When it changes to red you have to hit the brake instead. You have around a 1 - 1.5s window to do it I think. Super easy.

Depth Perception Test - You have a green button and a red button. Infront of you (about 5m away), there are two identical rulers. You need to use the green button to move one ruler closer to you until it's in line with the other ruler, then press the red button to stop it. I failed this first time, but got it second time, they seemed pretty relaxed about things even though there were tonnes of people waiting etc.

Proliferal Vision Test - We put our nose up against a machine. Green or red lights would then come on to our sides so that we had to see them out of our proliferal vision. They just wanted to know what the colour was each time, not which side it was coming from. Also there's a yellow light infront of you, yellow is not a valid answer to the question lol, apparently a lot of the Thai guys were just saying yellow all the time as didn't understand how it worked lol.

Then the fun started, we got to sit down and listen to a guy talking about something in Thai for around 30 minutes, and watch around 3h of videos, with maybe a 30-45 minute intermission for lunch. These videos were all in Thai, although they are videos so you can still understand from the pictures and a little bit of basic Thai. My gf said that if there was a group of foreigners all going at once maybe they'd put on an English version for us to watch, however I don't know what the chances of that happening would be. They gave us a maybe, 10 page, guide to the road signs too (A multiple language version of this was available (Including English)).

After we finished watching our videos, the car and motorcycle licence applicants were split up, alternating practivcal and theory tests.

Motorcycle Practical Test - Consisted basically of, wear a helmet, look behind you when you start, turn a corner, stop at a stop sign, drive through some cones (without putting your feet on your ground as you turn), pretty easy stuff, although some of the cones could be a pain if you had a really big bike.

Car Practical Test - I only watched others do this after I finished doing my licence, as I had come for my motorcycle, not car, licence. But it looked like basically like you just parallel park, back into a park, drive forwards into a park, turn a corner, stop at a stop sign kinda thing. Parking seemed to be the emphasis of it. This test still had around 15 cars queued up for it when we left, and each test seemed to take a long time, so don't expect to get away early if you're doing your car licence.

Theory Test - Based on the 3 hour video (In Thai) as well as the road signs, some of the questions were a little bit tricky since I hadn't understood the information in the video lol. However in general it was reasonably easy, just basic common sense + international driving regulations for most. The questions are available in English (As well as about 4 or 5 other languages), and are done on on a computer. It was 30x multiple choice questions, and you needed more than 75% correct (23+/30). I got 23/30, so only just passed, although I didn't drive in my home country so was probably at a little bit of a disadvantage (Especially since the rules which are different, were only explained in the Thai video lol), so don't take it too lightly.

Then just get them to take a photo of you, card is printed on the spot.

We didn't get out of there until around 5:30pm or 6pm (So with arriving there at 8:30am, about 9h in total), however there were tonnes of people (over 100 applying), and we were happy to wait at the back of the queues, however I couldn't imagine it taking less than about 5-6 hours (Even if you sit out the videos, they might want to wait for the others before they do your practical etc, so that they can do everyone at once).

Some extra information:

Initial licence is valid for 1 year, my gf said it's a full licence still, just if you do something bad in the 1 year, maybe you won't get another one after that one year has finished. After the year finishes, you can apply for a 5 year licence (people doing that, seemed to be watching a video as well, assume there was some form of test involved for them as well, but I'm not sure.

Once you have your car or motorcycle licence, you can apparently (gf asked the staff there), just come back for the practical in the afternoon for your other licence. You may even be able to get one on the same day

You do need your own car/motorcycle, although sharing with someone else is ok

Check the spelling of your name on your licence before/after they print it. My name (in Thai) was spelt incorrectly at first because the person writing my work permit has messy handwriting. Likewise my gf's name (In English) was spelt incorrectly, because she has the old ID card (so they had to just guess her name phonetically). Shouldn't cause many problems, depending on what you use it for.

The licence cost 55 Baht, although the photo for the licence cost 100 Baht (Not sure if you can just bring your own photo or not. But getting it done there was probably easier anyway). Cheap as, just the time factor which was a little annoying.

Anywho, I hope that this is of assistance to anyone else who's looking for a licence in Thailand Feels good to be legit, so that now I don't need to be worried about those pesky highway police, since they hopefully won't have any legit reason to try and fine me

[thailoht]

Thanks for taking the time to note the steps of process, it should serve as an informative guide to all other 'first-timers'!

Are there any different requirements for those with Non-Immig O (Retirement or Marriage) and with no Work Permit IDs?