Quote:
Originally posted by Bluebottle
That the normal thing here, but you can take a test with an autobox, but that only gives you a license to drive an auto and nothing else.
Does a standard US license allow you to drive both or do you have to have do a test on a stick-shift if you want to drive one?
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Proving you can go once around the block in your grandmother's automatic Cavalier without breaking any laws or crashing gets you a liscense to drive anything up to and including an SUV the size of a small house OR a twin-turbo Viper!
There's nothing resembling a graduated licensing system in the states, aside from the short-term "learners permits" every idiot gets when they turn 16, which requires them to drive under the supervision of someone with a liscense... So your 19 year-old cousin with a DUI and 3 accidents on his record is considered a competent instructor!
The only "superior" liscenses you can get is either a motorcycle endorsement on your basic liscense, or a CDL (Commercial Driver's Liscense), which actually does take some skill to get, as you have to successfully maneuver an 18-wheeler in that test.
I think Virginia was experimenting with a more sensible system, but I don't know if anything came of it.
Oh, and as I hinted at, you don't have to be able to read the language the road signs are in... The Department of Motor Vehicles supplies the written portion of the exam in dozens of languages, while the signs here are only in one.
Yes, not a big concern with the recognizable "STOP" sign, but what about "High Accident Area", "Reduced Speed Ahead", or "Construction Area: Fines Doubled"... Signs you can't recognize just by their shape.
Of course, they also give licenses to people born here who are functionally illiterate, so...
