Let the Road Rage Begin!
Today I officially became a licensed Illinois driver.
Heading downtown this morning, I expected the worst. I was armed with passport, birth certificate, social security card, and voter registration, none of which proved I lived at my current address. After only a brief wait, my number was called, and I went up to the counter. The haggard government employee glanced at all my identification, not even flinching when I told him I actually lived somewhere new.
"Where?" he asked. I told him. He punched it in to the computer. And it was official. "Solid!" I said (not out loud, of course).
Then it was time for the tests. The vision one was easy enough. I didn't bring my glasses, which I worried might be a problem, but I think you must have to be really blind to fail the driver's license eye exam.
The written test took a little longer and presented a bit more of a challenge. Luckily, during my brief wait, I had had a chance to skim through the helpful "Illiniois Rules of the Road" booklet available to all patrons in the waiting room. This last-minute cramming paid off on 2 or 3 questions, but most were of the obvious, common-sensical nature. Here's an example: "True or false? It's a good idea to consume large quantities of alchohol and then operate a motor vehicle shortly afterward."
Still, I did get 3 wrong. (You can miss 8 and still pass.) I mixed up 2 of the road signs ("merging" and "lane-ending," but come on? who really needs to know the difference?) and I balked when it came to a question about skidding. I thought turning into the skid was the old, archane suggestion. Turns out it's still valid.
Anyway, despite my lack of mastery, the Illinois Driver's Services Bureau decided to present me with a crisp new license and, with this small piece of plastic, its complete confidence in my driving abilities. This visit might also have produced the only ID-type photo of myself I actually like. So all in all, a great success.
1 Comments:
Three things:
1. It's like we're all grown up now - getting driver's licenses in states other than the ones we grew up in. So would you call your Chicago address your "permanent address"? That's an interesting life marker. When your parent's address is no longer your permanent address.
2. You'd think it would be easy to fail the vision part of the test but just wait until you hear my little story...
Five years ago, I went to the NH DMV armed with paperwork, ready to get my NH license. I only sported one contact lens at the time (in my right eye) and rarely wore it so I went without that day as well. I proceeded through the paperwork with little difficulty and it was time for my vision test. There was a white box on the counter. "Look through the eye pieces and tell me what you see," the woman instructed me. I looked. There were three columns. In the first column (on the left, seen only by the left eye) there were crisp tiny letters. In the middle column (seen by both eyes) there were slightly less crisp tiny letters. And in the far right column (seen only by my right eye) there was nothing. No blurs. No smudges. No evidence of ANY letters. I was effectively seeing NOTHING with my right eye. Did my brain just shut it down or something? Weird. I got nervous. I started reading the letters (from the left, thank god). I ambitiously started with the lowest (tiniest) row... "e, s, t, l, r, p, c.."
"That's good," she said, "You can stop there." Hallelujah! So I passed. Having seen only 2/3rds of the vision test screen. Scary huh?
3. Turn on word verification to avoid annoying blogspam.
7:57 PM
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