Top Secret

Hey folks, I need a favour. I'm currently doing a persuasive speech for English, where my chosen topic is: "That the Australian Federal Government should do more to adequatly train drivers."

What I would like to find out are various driver education programs in different countries, especially those in Germany, UK, Sweden and Japan. I would like to know programmes initiated or heavily promoted by your respective governments and what you must do in order to obtain your driver's licenses, if it's no trouble.

Thanks in advance for your help guys. :5cheers:

donau

Don't know about the countries you listed and also am probably out of date with my knowledge of the current procedures in Finland, and my memory may not be perfect (this happened more than 34 years ago), but if things have changed or if I remembered wrong, I'm sure someone will correct me.

The age limit at the time when I got my license was 18, and I had to attend theory classes a couple of times a week for three months in the evenings.
There were about the same amount of driving lessons with an instructor for the same three months. And at the end you obviously had to pass the driving test and the theory test plus prove that you knew all your traffic signs.

Pretty standard I would think, except for the age limit, here in the US, the kids get licenses at 16.

MikeJ

The current Finnish system goes like this:You need to attend a total of 30 theory lessons, four of which before you'll actually get behind the wheel of a car for the first of the total of 32 driving lessons + one "slippery conditions" practice on a track. Then you take the theory test and the driving test, and once you've passed those you'll get a temporary licence which is valid for two years. Before it expires you'll need to attend second-phase lessons in a driving school (one day), plus another visit at the slippery track and take a drive with the driving school instructor to get professional feedback of your strengths and weaknesses as a driver... And at either first or second phase a special "driving in the dark" driving lesson. After you've completed all of that you'll get a licence which expires when you turn 70.

Prepare to pay about €1,600 for the whole lot.

Matt530i

In Canada the provinces (of which there are 10) each have different rules for getting one's licence. In my province, Ontario, it is a three-stage process called graduated licencing.

The first step is to take a computer-based test (true false or multiple choice) on the rules of the road. Once this is passed you get your beginner's licence (called a G1). This allows you to drive as long as you have another fully-licenced person in the front seat with you and you are not permitted to drive on major highways. This licence is good for up to five years.

The second step is to take a road-test. If this is passed, then you get your G2 licence. It is pretty much a full licence except that you must have a blood-alcohol level of zero at all times and have no more passengers than you have seat belts.

After that, there's another road test and once you pass that there are no restrictions on driving, except that your blood-alcohol level must remain below the legal limit.

There are other restrictions that were just added for younger drivers on the G1 and G2 licences. Not sure of all of them, but there's now a restriction on teenage drivers having too many teenage passengers with an exception if their family. It's designed to prevent a bunch of 16 year olds from going out, having a blast in a car and getting distracted which may lead to accidents.

MikeJ

I forgot to mention that there are basically two ways of taking your driving lessons; either at a licenced driving school or have one of your parents (who need to pass a simple test) teach you. In either case, all driver training is done in cars that have at least an extra brake pedal on the passenger side (usually a full set of pedals). And a small white triangle to warn other drivers. Driving education (for a "B" passenger car or "C" truck licence) may begin 6 months before your 18th birthday at the earliest.

Osnabrueck

In Germany the system is to do about 2,000 hours of driving lessons followed up by expensive testing at the TUV. It's 200 Euro for the practical exam, and they'll fail you if you sneeze.

I passed the 2nd time around, and paid out roughly 1,500 Euro for my German licence, and I met several people who were trying the practical exam for the 5th or 6th time.

donau

OMG, how many years do you end up going to driving school? 2,000 hours is 250 eight hour workdays!

Choleric

Wow, I think the US might have the most lax conditions Ive seen than, because in Nebraska, at least, once you're 16 all you have to have is a learners permit (which you can get by driving for 40hrs, or taking drivers ed) and than take a ridiculously easy written driving test and then pay like a 15$ fee, than your set for life pretty much.

warot

Haha, here's how I got my American driver's license, which is a JOKE.
First step, do the theory test. Since I haven't lived here before I was 18, I didn't have to go take any classes. I just had one of those small handbooks and found sample problems online. That wasn't too bad... I'm just more used to the metric system, that's all. So I passed that no problem.

Step 2, is to actually take the driver's license. I don't have a car, so I borrowed my roomates which was an automatic. The test took 10 mins, drove around the block. Stopped at a stop sign, at a red light, took a few turns, then went back to the DMV. That was IT. Didn't even have to do parallel parking. This is in Blacksburg Virginia though, a small college town.

Now, I'm allowed to drive a manual car... good thing I already knew how to drive before. Crazy thing is, my license was valid in South Africa. That's how little experience people have these days.

Osnabrueck

Forgive me for the confusion. I was exaggerating when I said 2,000 hours of driving school.

I don't believe there's an actual limit of hours that are required to get your licence in Germany. In fact, I believe you can go straight to the TUV for your test if you so please, but you'll also have a snoball's chance in hell of passing the practical exam.

Thing is - there's some sort of Fahrschule / TUV racket where the instructors are ovbiously chummy with the testers and people get squeezed for every penny they have. When I got to Germany I was already an experienced driver with no need of anything beyond a few pointers, but I still got stuck doing hours and hours of driving instruction leading up to my tests.

The first time you take your test you're bound to fail if you don't perform like an absolute robot. To this day, I'm convinced that I got failed for no reason whatsoever. 200 Euro down the drain.

The upside of Germany's nutball process is that people are paranoid of losing their licence, so folks think twice about driving drunk or recklessly. The other upside is that once you have the thing, you're set for life.