We avoid gasoline-powered vehicles as much as possible. In Japan, this is not hard. Subways, trains, walking, and the trusty bicycle all make for good transportation options.
After years of procrastination, though, the time has come to get a Japanese driver's license.
The reasons for this are simple:
1. Foreign drivers can use an international license for only one year (no renewal)
2. The in-laws are getting up in age, and will need rides to the doctor etc.
If you are from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most European countries, and other countries that have a reciprocal arrangement with Japan, all you have to do is go to the licensing center, fill out forms, and then pay for the newly minted license.
If however you are from the United States, China, Brazil, Morocco, etc., you are now about to enter the the Japanese version of the Looking Glass.
The rumors, no facts, about the process are enough to scare away the hardest of hard. However, this article will introduce the steps to change over your home country license into a Japanese driver's license. It involves a lot of time, frustration, bureaucracy, and a bit of silliness - and a written and driving test.
Day 1
Step 1: Get your valid home country license translated at a local JAF office. (If you do not have a license in your home country, you need to go start from scratch and go to driving school in Japan.) This costs 3,000 yen and takes about one hour. In Kyoto, the JAF office is on Karasuma, north of Marutamachi opposite the Imperial Palace.
Step 2: Get your Juminhyo (proof of residence form) at your ward office. This costs 350 yen and will be issued in very little time.
You will take those forms and your driver's license, passport (and expired ones if you still have them), alien registration card, and one 3 x 2.4 cm photo of your face to the licensing center. (Take copies of all of the above just to be sure.)
Note: you may be asked to prove that you resided in your home country after obtaining your driver's license. For many, this means finding a piece of paper - a high school or college diploma, tax form - from many years past. We were not required to jump through this hurdle.
Step 3: Call the license center in your prefecture to schedule an appointment. (In Kyoto, where we live, we called in early July and got in on August 3.)
Day 2 (Submit Documents, Take Written Test)
Step 4: Go the driving center in your prefecture on the appointed day and time. At the Kyoto center, in Nagaokakyo, it is old, decrepit, and vaguely reminiscent of a prison. Find the "menkyo kirikae" window (in Kyoto, upstairs on the second floor, window 8). You will be asked to fill out a simple form and submit the forms you brought.
Step 5: After an hour or so, you will be called and given separate forms. You will write your name and address on multiple forms. Then you must go downstairs and buy 2200 yen of stamps. Bring those stamped and signed forms back up to window 8.
Step 6: After 15 minutes or so, you will be called again. A worker - all of whom are Kyoto cops - will take you downstairs to the main hall and point you in the direction of the test room for the written exam.
Step 7: At the appointed time, which was 11:30 am in Kyoto, you and a few other gaijin will be ushered into a large room and given a simple test. It will be in Japanese and English. You have 10 minutes to answer 10 questions. To pass, you have to get 7 or more correct (they are all "yes" or "no" true-false questions.)
If you pass - we did - this ends Day 2. Since you have to submit your documents for the driving test by 9 am, you will need at least another day at the license center.
Day 3 (Driving Test)
1. Go to the license center by about 8 am on a weekday (there are no reservations for the driving test). The windows open at 8:30, but there will be a long line long before that.
2. What to Bring: The forms you received when you passed the written exam, passport, alien registration card, driver's license from home country, personal seal （印鑑）*, money (20,000 to be safe).
3. Buy tickets at window 2B to pay for the license test (1,550 yen).
4. Submit your stamped documents at window 5.
5. Wait to be called.
6. At that point, you will be given a map of the route.
Warning: You will probably fail the test on the first try, if not several more times. Go again the next available day - until you pass. When you do pass, you will need to pay to have the license issued.
*We do have a seal but are not sure if it is required for applicants from a non-Kanji country.
Notes
1. The route of the exam is prescribed. However, the instructor will not tell you where to go; indeed, he will hardly speak. Thus, you need to know - no, you need to memorize - the route.
2. To do this, go very early - around 7 am - and you can walk the route.
Recommendations
1. Learn Japanese traffic signs.
2. Take 2-3 hours of lessons at the "koshu jo" (telephone: 075 631 6145) to prepare for the driving test. The lessons cost 7500 yen for 50 minutes, and the instructors will teach how you to drive the course and give you other tips.
3. No matter how experienced a driver you are, you do NOT know how to drive the course the way the Kyoto cops want you to UNLESS you take these lessons. What is required to pass the test bears little resemblance to ordinary on the road driving. It involves strange braking (pumping), a ludicrous amount of mirror checking, nitpicking over how many centimeters you drive from the lines. And you have to do this while keeping in mind the course with no guidance from the cop sitting next to you.
Godspeed and keep cycling.
Kyoto License Center
Bus from JR Nagaokakyo Station or Hankyu Nagaoka Tenjin Station
075 631 5181
© CycleKyoto.com
Tags Japan Touring Kyoto Cycle Japanese
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