I passed.
I have a French driver’s license.
This is more or less the process(less)
Rewind to a year ago to November 2023. I did two things to ensure that when my California driver’s license expired that I would have already taken and passed my test.
- I reached out to a local driving school and enrolled in their course. They did not provide English courseware…or anything English, really, but this way I had 2 things; A place to practice driving by French standards and A place to take my practical examine.
They were also meant to provide me with my ANTS number, which is a number pertaining to the documentation associated with driving. - I reached out to an online English training company, but their online form did not function and they did not get back to me.
Come January 2024 And I do get ahold of Zipee, the English driving company. I obtain their services which include:
- English printed courseware
- PDF files of the courseware
- Access to webinars
- And at the time, access to Code de la Route testing in Pau or Paris in English. Later, the Prefecture of Pau messed with them, and Paris became the only option.
Zipee was haranguing me for my ANTS number, and in Late February, 2024 I reach out to my local driving school and say “what gives?” (My wife reached out en Francaise.)
What gives is that the ANTS system was asking for further clarification on my documentation, had done so many months before, and what I had foolishly assumed was a delay due to French bureaucracy was in fact due to the ineptitude and lackadaisical nature of the local driving company. Once we got the ball rolling, I now had my ants number.
It is March, a month and a half away from me losing my license.
Totally on me, I should have been studying the Code de la Route at this point in a much more intentional way. For that matter, if you are driving here you should be, because the road signs alone are fucking insane.
But here I am in March, now I have an ANTS number.
Come August, I take my Code test. I can’t explain myself or remember why the delay between losing my right to drive, and my testing for the code. A month and a half was getting a slot at the Prefecture in Paris, but …
Prior to August, I studied like a demon. I dedicated 3 or 4 hours a day to the Code. I took hundreds of practice tests online. I personally don’t like webinars, so I did not take full advantage of Zipee’s services.
I used Stych.fr and Codeclic.com for online testing, predominantly Codeclic. I spent the 17 euros for full access.
Codeclic provides 3500 testing panels, arranges them into either a random, representational test, tests categorized by section, or tests based on weakness. They provide metrics as well.
To pass the code you need to score 35 or higher out of 40. I tested repeatedly until I was passing all the time, with the exception of translation issues. Codeclic translated via Google pretty well. I also looked at the questions en Francaise to learn key words and concepts in French.
We went up to Paris for 2 days, shopped around, I took my test, I passed.
Testing day went like this:
We showed up at the testing center. Met a representative from the school. At testing time, we form an orderly line, one by one we are assigned seats by an exceptionally disenfranchised man. He checks our identity, hands us an electronic testing pendant and points at a seat.
A Muslim woman was required to remove her head covering, I am sure she is used to it in France, but she must have felt denuded.
The test was mostly straightforward.
They show you video or still situations, some questions, you answer them via your pendant. The translator reads the questions to the room. They take requests for clarification or to repeat. If the translator does not know if they are allowed to clarify something specific, they ask the exceptionally non-plussed examiner. Supposedly you have unlimited time as opposed to the 30 seconds allotted to the French version, but sometimes that was not the case.
About an hour? (felt like 40 minutes to me) we finish, hand in our pendants, and go to the lobby and wait. The examiners are not required to announce the scores or even who passed or failed. Some do, some don’t. The non-plussed, disenfranchised examiner liked us and told the rep from Zipee who passed and failed.
Of the 6 of us, 3 died on the battle field. I passed. By how much, I was not told. I found out yesterday (Nov. 5th, 2024, that I passed with 37/40) while looking at my records online.
Just drive…
Now for the driving portion. I am evaluated and found to be safe enough to drive accompanied. I get a magnetic sticker for the back of my vehicle. It depicts an adult line figure with a youth figure at the wheel. I am 58, but young at heart.
They assign me 4 more lessons. They identify my weaknesses.
- Driving too slowly, I can go the speed limit, and I am expected to accelerate to the speed limit with more vigor.
- I need to use my mirrors more. Before braking, before turning on my indicators. I need to semaphore to the examiner in the passenger seat that I am doing so. Dangling earrings are recommended as one way to show head movement.
- I need to parallel park better. I need to back into spaces without invading the opposite side of the road.
- I need to better observe and slow down when I am in a situation where there is priority on the right.
- I need to identify and maintain the proper speed for the area I am in.
That’s about it.
Verbatim, typos included, is my experience at the testing center that I posted yesterday.
Here is how it went:
The examiner showed up a little late. She had to wait 20 minutes for her salad, she even said putain. (Putain means whore, but they use it like damn or shit here.)
I went into the office, gave her my form of identification. I checked out.
She and I leave her office, a dingy little building in the middle of a parking lot, and then she recites something to me about driving with respect, etc.
We pop off to the car and she gives me some instructions. My instructor from the driving school is sitting in the back, the examiner is in the front.
I tell her in my best French that I do not speak French very well, and ask if she could speak slowly. Lots of thank you’s in there as well.
My instructor is buttering her up I think. She is actually in a pretty good mood. She is clear and concise in her language, and uses hand gestures to indicate direction.
I turn left onto a street with a limit of 70, which soon drops to 30, and I get to 30 but shortly after, hit 35…ding, there goes a point.
In France we have priority on the right, and that is what got me on my practice test. She takes me to a neighborhood where I know there are a lot of them, I am vigilant, though according to my instructor, I did miss one that is well known to be difficult to detect.
Understand, the roads are narrow and not well marked. You have to look past the gravel to see the paint on the road that indicates if the intersection on the right is controlled with a dashed line (yield) or a solid like (stop) which lets me know the expected behavior of drivers approaching from the right.
We when went to a parking lot, and she asked me to park, rear first.
I fucking aced it. Parking is not my best skill. I aced it. SH ethen had me shut off the motor.
Then, they take the last 2 digits of your odometer and use that as an index for a series of 3 questions from a book of 100.
The first one I missed. There was a subtlety in the indicators of the vehicle that involved an indicator belt associated with the seatbelt that I did not understand the function of in this vehicle.
(Side note, you test in the school’s vehicle. It has a brake and gas pedal, as well as indicators and a horn for the passenger, normally your instructor, but on the day of the test, you r examiner. )
Question 2 pertained to the age that a child could sit in the front with a seatbelt only, 10, which I got. Yay, 1 bonus point.
Question 3 was fucking hilarious. It was very long and drawn out, full of words I did not understand and terminology I did not know. When the examiner asked me the question, and she asked me slowly, I looked ate her dead in the eye and said “wow.” She said “yes” in English, the instructor giggled, and she repeated again, very slowly, word by word, the question. I replied that I did not know.
1/3 isn’t horrible, a point is a point.
Now, since we got off on to a late start, I was not sure how she was going to handle the duration of the test. It is meant to be 1/2 an hour, we got started at 8:44 instead of 8:30.
We leave the parking lot. I keep driving fucking slow (30 kph is the speed in the city, that is 18 mph) and then the instructor and examiner keep using the word “terminate”
I am freaking the fuck out thinking that I got 3 dings on something which renders you failed. 3 minutes later and we are on a course back to the school.
I get out of the car, my instructor talks to my wife and I, and says with 2 thumbs up “yes” meaning that tin his humble opinion I passed. I can’t know the answer lest I get a fail and go into the office and beat the snot out of examiner…
It is now half past very early the next day.
I log on to the appropriate govt website and I learn that I passed with 29/31 points. The 2 points that were dinged were the verbal questions…
I will replace the cute little sticker with the scarlet letter “A”
My systolic blood pressure had gone up 25 points.
It is back down now.
I can now chill the fuck out.
Disclaimer:
This is my experience. Individual results may vary. Side effects may include seizure, anal leakage, dissociative disorder, or in the case of some people, apparently, result in moving back the the United States.
Professional Driver, Closed Course, Do Not Attempt at Home.
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