Legal at last

Here's a nice thing. I finally have a Texas driver's License. That is huge. Americans know how necessary that is, and how absolutely taken for granted it is by everyone except foreigners.  I couldn't walk into Lucy's school without an elaborate explanation to the security guard about how UK licenses didn't have the magnetic strip she was trying to scan into her ID sticker generator, and that, Yes, I did  live here, but No, I hadn't yet got around to getting a license, and Yes, I really must do because it would make HER JOB so much easier....

It was a HUGE palaver, as they say in England.  I had to start completely from scratch, despite waving my old Illinois license which expired in 1992 (and such a sweet photo!). Starting from scratch means a huge identity parade, consisting of every legal document I've ever owned, followed by The Written Test, followed by the Road Test. Each phase meant getting to the Department of Public Safety before 7am to queue up, and phase 1, the document screen, involved a 3-hour wait. Luckily phase 2 - the written test - involved enough of a wait that I managed to skim the Texas Rules of the Road booklet, which enabled me to pass the test. There were some totally unfair questions about the penalties for drunk driving ("on a first offense, is the penalty A: $10,000; B: $5,000 or C: $2000." The answer is C, but the penalties go up steeply for repeat offenses.)  And actually the written test involved pressing buttons on a computer screen and no writing at all. I only just passed with 85%.

The road test, which I took just before school started,was a complete fiasco, because after leaving the house at 615am to queue up for a later test time, I returned to the DPS, drove into the test line and was told by the tester that my car was not only unsuitable for testing, but not road legal. It seems there is a kind of MOT in Texas, at least a vehicle emissions test, which was completely news to me. And my car's had expired 3 months earlier. However he took pity on my pseudo English accent and sent me to a garage around the corner which would administer the emissions test for $28. I drove home to collect all 3 children who had been splashing around in the pool, drove into the garage and parked all four of us, including Fred's buggy, in their tiny waiting room. Half an hour later, we raced out with the pass certificate in hand, drove around the corner to the DPS, and queued up for the test a second time. I sent Fred and the girls for a walk in 104F heat up to the Wendy's restaurant on the next corner with instructions to buy ice cream, and waited my turn.  The same man beamed at my documentation, asked me to drive around the block and complete one parallel parking maneuver and passed me.

It came last week in the mail, followed by a $200 deduction in our car insurance premiums, as we're no long aliens, in their eyes. And Texas no longer includes height and weight on their cards, no doubt because everyone lied about it anyway.