I got my drivers permit in 1995. When I moved to Canada 9 years later the blissful inertia of living downtown and not needing a car made me lazy. I let months roll by and I missed the window of opportunity to have my Trinidad drivers permit transferred. The process seemed like a tangle of paperwork, so I instead decided to just go the normal route of redoing both the written and the road test.
How hard could it be to start from scratch?
Answer: shockingly hard
The ‘Graduated’ licensing system here in Ontario is a thing of wonder. You sit the written drivers test and are then immediately allowed to drive, with certain limitations, on your G1 license. You then have a period of years in which to get your G2 and sit your final road test. Graduating to a full final G license.
So basically with your G2 you can drive yourself to the road test center, do your test, fail and then drive off. Which is exactly what the person before me did when, the same instructor failed her too. Except she pretty much peeled tires and tore the hell outa there in a rage. I guess she wasn’t too thrilled with her non-passing grade.
The whole system seems flawed at best.
Having had my G2 for a couple of years, again still bound by inertia of downtown life, I went to do my road test today in hopes of having this whole G2 vs G license debacle behind me once and for all. If nothing else it is really boring to have to redo something you did at 17 again at 37. Total snooze fest!
And for the second facking time, I failed the facking road test. My failure comprised of going 56km in a 50km zone and not making a full 3-second stop at a right turn red light. Dig both of my eyes out with a spoon.
At the end of the test as the instructor handed me this glorious piece of yellow paper with large scribbled circles around the word FAILED he said, “ you are actually a really good driver, I am sorry to have to fail you.”
Umm what?
And while neurons in my brain were busy trying to process the fact that I had again taken time off and dragged yet another kindly car-owning friend out to the back of nowhere with me to do a drive test, the instructor then added “feel free to ask for me when you want to book your follow up test”
Then my brain exploded and I lost consciousness.
Umm no thanks, failure dude?
I smiled and said thank you as he got out of the car.
My rage and annoyance subsided on the drive back downtown as I yelled FAILED every time my friend Kim did something that would be considered a driving offense. It pretty much made my day better. Then we ate sushi and I was happy again.
So all in all I have decided to look on the bright side of this ‘failure’ and set a new goal to see how many times I will have to pay $86 and do this test before I can get a drivers permit; which is something that I have technically already had for the last 20 years.
Thanks, Ontario, thanks.
1 Comment
cheese! how many different shenanigans to draw peoples money out of their pockets!
my daughter was like you and let it slip to renew her canadian licence when she lived with me in dominican republic! there you can drive with a license from anywhere, even if it’s outdated! it’s still better than dominicans driving without! when she came to switzerland, instead of being able to transfer to the swiss license, she had to pass the whole shebang! but in switzerland it costs you something like 800 bucks, because you have to prove that you had drivers training! and when you are lucky enough to pass, you have to go for a training course, that costs 400 bucks, within a year! so, see the bright side! you’re not in switzerland, but in canada! 🙂 🙂 🙂 (this is just trying to make you feel better!)
hugs