One of the trends that’s followed me throughout my life is that soon after I arrive some place, or reach a certain age, the rules change and I’m no longer eligible for whatever the rules used to allow. When I turned 18 I was legally able to drink 3.2% alcoholic drinks, but seven months later Kansas changed its laws in such a way that I wasn’t able to legally drink until I turned 21.

Japan did something similar to me. When I first arrived in Japan, foreigners could legally drive as long as they possessed a valid International Driver’s License. The could renew it forever. However, about the time I moved to Tokyo someone in Japan realized there wasn’t any money in letting foreigners use foreign licenses and changed the law to require that anyone living in Japan for more than a couple acquire a Japanese drivers license.

Now this in and of itself shouldn’t be that big of a problem. However, Japan being Japan decided to make getting license as complicated as possible. There were exceptions: anyone from a country that drives on the wrong side of the road (left) was granted the ability to get a license without having to take a driving test. Canada filled out enough paperwork that Canadians, despite driving on the correct side of the road (right), were also allowed to get a license without taking a driving test.

The USA, however, having a larger population than most of the wrong side of the road countries combined was unable to fill out the paper work in a way that satisfied Japanese authorities. (Basically, every licensing office in the country would have to fill out the paper work and guarantee that a Japanese could a license without having to take a driving test.) And that’s just the start of it.

To get a license, I first had to prove that I had a license for at least 30 days before I came to Japan. There’s a clerk whose job is to go through documents and match driver’s license dates with entry visa dates. If the clerk’s not satisfied, you will be coming back.

Eventually, to pass this phase, I had to provide all my expired passports and all my expired Kansas driver’s licenses. Luckily, I’m enough of a minor hoarder that I still have all of those. Once that was done I had to get the most recent license translated into Japanese (for 6,000 yen-ish). Then, at long last, I’d be able to take the eye and written test and then take the driving test. (For another 6,000 yen-ish.) Unfortunately, each prefecture (or state) has only one licensing office which makes getting a license an all day project.

History–both personal and as written by other foreigners–and 6,000 for each try says I will fail the test at least once. To avoid this, and because I’d never driven on the wrong side of the road (in an official capacity, at least) I went to the testing center a few years ago and paid 5,000 for a one hour practice session on the test course. (You are expected to know the course when you take the test.) It all went surprisingly smoothly and except for turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers a few times when I was changing lanes, the hour was uneventful.

Unfortunately, at the time I was doing a lot of extra work in the summer and the thought of spending all day at the center only to have spend another day at the center, has caused me to put off trying to get the license for along time.

I hope to do a couple more practice sessions (at least once with a manual transmission) and finally try for my license this summer. Hopefully I’ll only have to do it once; but I’m sure by then the rules will have changed.