Here is the story of my day at the Land Transport Office.
I made my application at the Land Transport Office off Sukhumvit a little ways
past the ON Nut BTS stop. You make a left hand turn about 20 yards past Soi 99
(Soi 62 is on the other side about 200 yards before the turn). The road is a good
5 minute walk, so taking a taxi from the On Nut station is a good idea. It would
be a good 15-20 minute walk from there.
Note: I had my California DL stolen over New Years when my apartment was
burglarized. So I had to go through then entire process. I am told with an
International License or a valid license from your country, only the eye and
reaction tests are required to get the Thai DL.
First, if you do not speak fluent Thai or have a TGF or friend who is bi-lingual,
you almost have no chance of getting thru it all smoothly and quickly in my
opinion unless you are willing to make many mistakes and end up coming back 2 or
three times/days. All the signs are in Thai and few to none of the employees speak
English. However, to my surprise, the instruction booklets which you study before
taking the written exam are available in English in the test room. And the test
can be given in English too. So that is a real plus. But this is Bangkok, so I
doubt you can count on that upcountry or even out of Bkk.
After you pass thru the hoops of Medical Certificate (50-200B), Embassy Statement
(1200B)of your Resident Address, 2 proper 1 inch photos (which can be taken and
purchased there for 65B in 10 minutes), you take some physical tests with a large
group going one at a time.
1/ Color test. This is like the color tests in the states where you see an array
of colored dots and you pick out the letter or number that can be seen in a one
color pattern. But here in Bkk it is different. The lady points with a pencil to
one particular dot and you say the color you see and call out ..... daeng, leung
or kiaow (red, yellow or green).
2/ Reaction test. You see a red and green light while you have your foot on a
small accelerator pedal on the floor in front of you. When you press the pedal,
some vertical lights begin moving up and you are to step on the brake pedal next
to the accelerator pedal as fast as you can. If the lights make it too high (too
long reaction time) you fail. I never saw anyone fail more than once. My reaction
was faster than nearly anyone else I saw too.
3/ Periferal color recognition. You put your nose/chin to a shelf with some lights
at almost 180deg from your eyes. The lady presses a button which puts red or
yellow or green on either the left or right and you are to call out what you see.
This one was a bit difficult for me but I made it through. I think it is because
my contacts limit my periferal vision.
4/ Depth Perception Test. You sit in a chair about 10 feet from a box at chair
height. In the box are two small (3inch) white poles. One pole will move forward
or backward in response to the red and green button controls on a small control
box you are given/holding. The idea is to make the moving pole line up the same
distance from you as the fixed white pole. I actually failed this one because my
eyes are different because I practice monovision. That is I have a contact in my
right eyes for long distace seeing and no contact in my left eye for close vision
and reading. Over time, this has caused my eyes to become different. This day I
put contacts in both eyes to be sure an eye test where you cover one eye and the
other was a test I would pass. Little did I know it would backfire on me.
Hahahahah.
After the physical tests, we went upstairs to the 3rd floor where we were given
booklets with all the driving rules and customs we needed for the written test.
Fortunately, as I mentioned above, they had booklets in English. We were given
about 30 minutes and then two tapes were played which went over the same
information with visuals and an instructor. This was all in Thai and took nearly
90 minutes. Then the test was passed out and we had pretty much as much time as we
wanted.
You then go for lunch at the food court across the parking lot and in 45 minutes
it was 1 o'clock, time to return to the test room. He spoke a bit to us and then
had us report to the first floor where our papers and test results were handed out
one by one. There were quite a few who failed the test. You needed to get 23 of
the 30 questions right. And many questions were tricky.
If you passed, you then went to another building where the driving test was
administered. About one third of the people had their own cars or came with
someone who had a car. The rest like myself used a car provided and paid an 80B
rental fee.
Now I am a six foot three inch guy with very long legs. And the car they had was
the smallest thing I have ever seen. I was barely able to get in it. In fact I
could not lean my head out the window, it was so close to the ceiling. My SO said
I was driving with my head tilted at almost a 45 degree angle although I was not
conscious of this.
The driving test involved going forward 30 feet and then backing up the same
amount to see if you can drive straight while going backwards. Then there were a
few stops to be made around a circular route. Then you make a left turn and must
get your front tire exactly on a white line while being less than 6 inches from
the curb. Finally you must execute a parallel parking maneuver. And that's it.
You go to one window for a stamp, then another to pay 105Baht and wait for the
machine to cough out your pretty license. Finally you go back to the photo desk
where they will laminate the license in plastic for 15B.
So that was my trip to the Land Transport Office. We got there around 8:30 and
left at about 3:30.
Cheers. Now I can buy a car and have the freedom to move away from the BTS to
areas with less expensive housing if I want. I like having the privacy and control
provided by owning your own car. Plus my lady no longer need walk long disances in
her high heels when we go out. And finally since I was almost killed by a car 4
times in this first year walking the streets of Bangkok, I feel I will be safer by
reducing my street exposure. Of course the downside is I will be dealing with
crazy Bangkok traffic and drivers. So tit for tat, but new experiences ahead.
Edited by paulfr, 2005-04-22 10:38:38.
