La Patente

La Patente

In Italian La Patente means driving licence. Having worked in 4 countries - India, Oman (Muscat), Bahrain and Italy - I had the opportunity to obtain driving licence in each of these countries. The journey started in India and finally culminated in Italy. In this write up, I intend to cover the aspect of the process of obtaining driving licences in each country and some related interesting snippets. The intention is that one can make their own opinion about each country's processes, usage of technology and the most important, the empathy demonstrated by the respective administrations in caring for their people - both the drivers and pedestrians.

The process of obtaining jobs in 4 countries was possible because all throughout, I drove like crazy, but never jumped the yellow light!

Following are my experiences in obtaining the licence -

India

I had to undertake theory test orally, road test and parking test. This was at the Mumbai Regional Transport Office. This was the simplest amongst the four.

Muscat, Oman

It took me 6 months and 5 attempts to get the Driving Licence. This was in spite of the fact that I had almost 10 years’ experience driving in Mumbai. Basically, I had to unlearn my Mumbai driving habits! It's the first time I realised unlearning is more difficult than learning.
In most countries abroad, it becomes extremely difficult to perform your duties (and thereby your stay at that place) in the absence of driving licence. It was becoming so frustrating, it reminded me of the two attempts I took to clear my CA final exam.

However here is an interesting incident which happened later. In many countries, whenever there is an intersection of two roads and there are no traffic lights, either by convention or rule one straight road is considered to be primary and the other secondary. There are traffic signs to this effect. Therefore, if there is an accident at the intersection, the fault would be of the vehicle driving on the secondary road because it is mandatory that it stops before approaching the intersection. The car on the primary road has the right of way and need not reduce its speed.
One day when I was driving to office, I approached an intersection. I was on the primary road and as I approached the intersection, I noticed a training car coming from the right side on the intersecting secondary road at a speed which I felt it could not stop at the intersection. Therefore, as a matter of precaution, I slowed down and finally stopped completely as the training car zoom passed in front of me. Being a Driver Training car, it so happened that concerned traffic authorities were taking the driving test of a candidate. In Muscat, the procedure for taking the test is that the candidate drives, the Testing Officer (a senior Road Police Officer) sits next to him, his trainer and another junior Policeman sit behind. The Officer sitting in front seat can slam the brakes and can touch the steering if the candidate makes some mistake. So, when this training vehicle zoom passed me, the Police Officer realised that he should have slammed the brakes and stopped at the intersection. Realising his mistake, he stopped ahead and came running to say Shukran (thank you) 😄😄😄

An interesting aspect comes out from this instance. In India, we take into consideration the likely mistakes of others and are accommodative.
My Indian driving habit helped me to prevent a major accident.


Bahrain

Based on my Oman licence, I got the Bahrain licence

Italy

This was the toughest. The process involved an elaborate medical test, equally elaborate theory test and road test. At the time of getting the licence first time, the medical test was not very elaborate probably because I was < 60 at the time of appearing for the test.

The written test was computer based - half an hour, 30 objective questions with multiple four probable answers, you have to answer >27 to pass. The Driving Schools conduct classes and there are books available for studying. But the classes were conducted in Italian language, and having recently arrived in Italy, I didn't understand Italian. The books however were somewhat useful as there were pictures and I used translators.

When I gave the computer test there was a choice given to select the test language, so I gave it in English and passed at the first attempt. However, about a couple of months later after I got the licence, the option of giving the test in any other language other than Italian was withdrawn. So, I was extremely lucky.
The Driving School had arranged a mini bus to the 'exam' centre and we were around 10 of us. At that time, I realised that most of the 'students' had attempted the written test several times.

At the time of renewal, as I had crossed 60, the medical tests were stringent. A cardiologist was the final Doctor clearing me, but he/she would do it after I get clear reports from Ophthalmologist and other Doctors. The biggest challenge here was to obtain appointments chronologically as the interval between two Doctors' appointments was very high. For example, even for a cataract operation, one has to wait for months. And if the process is not completed before the expiry of current licence, it was necessary to start from scratch as if I did not have a license 😀

And last but not the least, whenever one gets an opportunity to work abroad there are other major adaptations and adjustments required to various aspects of life. Official, social interactions, cuisine, table manners, festival formalities, greetings methods, our interaction between men, women, children, babies, ceremonies, etc. I consider myself extremely fortunate that God provided to me and my family this unprecedented experience in not one, but four countries.