We Take Our Driving Tests

After taking two driving "unlearning" lessons we have been deemed fit to take our driving tests. For this a tester comes from Beer-Sheva to drive around with us and test our driving abilities. So, you can get a driver's license in Israel after driving and being tested on the streets of Mitzpe Ramon only, a town without a single traffic light, and then drive anywhere in Israel. Ok. The driving test also does not require that you park the car or drive in reverse. No doubt this is why backing up is the single most dangerous thing you can do in a car in Israel.

Pam takes her test with a teenage girl who is being re-tested after failing her first test. This is after 40 driving lessons, the usual number for a beginning driver. Apparently the tester yelled at the teenager about something, and after the test she is deathly afraid she has failed again. Three strikes and you have to take 40 more driving lessons. This is why they no longer tell you immediately if you have passed or failed the test. People used to pull guns and knives on the testers if they failed the test. I would, too, if I had to take another 40 driving lessons. Pam says she thought the girl drove fine, and didn't see any problems. As it turned out later, the teenager failed. Go know.

My test, like Pam's, was perfunctory. After all, I've been driving for twice the number of years that the tester has been alive. However, I consider it a singular achievement that I got him to tell me to drive faster. That after the driving instructor told me I have a lead foot.

Later that day Chavie was coming back from the market near the Cafeneto and she tells me, Guess what, you passed your driving test and so did Mommy. How did she know? Apparently, the tester had coffee at the 'Neto after he finished testing people and Oren, the manager, asked him if we passed. So, when I got home and Pam said Guess what? I said, We passed our driving tests. She was amazed that I already knew.

Such is life in Mitzpe Ramon.

Happy Trails to you. (Click for full size.)

Driver's Unlearning Lessons

Having conquered the Israeli bureaucracy and gotten all of our paper work in order, we were now in a position to take our driving lessons before taking our driving test to get our Israeli driver's license. Or I should call them diver's unlearning lesson. This where you unlearn all of the (bad?) driving habits you developed over 45+ years of driving and learn to drive like an 18 year old teenager from Pasadena.

I remember a conversation with a Russian guard at the Ace hardware store in Beer-Sheva, where he confided in us that he was taking driving lessons. How many have you had, I asked. 40, he answered! Whoa. With all these driving lessons you'd think Israelis would be pretty good drivers. And of course they're not. Russians with driver's licenses from the former Soviet Union are regraded with special skepticism, apparently because Russians bought their licenses from corrupt government officials and never really learned to drive. I suppose NATO never had anything to fear from all those tanks pointed at Western Europe because the drivers never could have gotten them there.

In any case, one of the main things that driver ed emphasizes is using your blinker for even the slightest maneuver. This is especially ironic because if there's one thing Israeli drivers never use it is the turn signal on their car. You can be standing at an intersection with a baby carriage and the car turing will no more give you a signal than Israel will ever give the Palis an inch of Jerusalem. This must just be Jewish stiff-neckedness as a challenge to the constant badgering of their driving instructor to use that signal.

Our driving instructor is Iris, and she is very nice. Apparently we are a shoe-in to pass our test after just two lessons each! Now here's something different - in Israel the tester comes to you to give you your test. This means that you can get a driver's license if you know how to drive in Mitzpe Ramon, a town without a single traffic signal, and you can then drive in Tel Aviv, a town with worse traffic than Manhattan. Go figure. See you on the road, and don't wait for me to signal a turn.

Pam behind the wheel with her driving instructor Iris next to her. Every learner's car has that "Lamed" on top to warn everyone that a student driver is behind the wheel. What does it stand for? Lumox? Lamdan (Learner)? Probably that.