Originally Posted by
oliver2002
Re: Driving Licences:
Japan: uses a different convention for recirpocal DL recognition that most of the world, hence some DL (like Germany issued ones) need a separate translation from the JAF.
Swedish DLs have a new system: whereas previously you could renew it like your passport and have it sent to the nearest diplomatic mission now you have to apply for renewal in the EU country you live in. That way my wife now has a German DL valid till 2035. In the US Michigan didn't recognise the Swedish licence and made her do the written and practical driving test. Which was a joke, the wife of the instructor who took the test made her go thru the test to be administred the next day. Michigan had reciprocity with Germany, so I got a US DL without any issues. The lady at the DMV mentioned that should have taken away my German DL before handing me the MI DL but noted in the rcord that I had 'forgotten' to bring it to the DMV that day. A similar thing happened to my Indian DL in Germany: after completing the tests I had to surrender it for the new German DL.
A colleague of mine coincidentally got her DL in the US: when she was in WA under a high school student exchange for a year, the local HS literally gave her a DL because she took the driving lessons at school as part of the normal curriculum. Back in Germany the authorities in Bremen said they would accept it to issue a German DL because she was in the US for more than 6 months. She still took some lessons to manage in Germany but dodn't have to spend the enormous sums kids need to pay to learn how to drive here.
I had my runs with European exchange students who thought it was cool that they too could cheaply get US driving licenses courtesy of US high school driver's ed courses and could drive in the US. Most of them couldn't drive in their European home countries because the driving ages at home required them to be older than the US state where they got their licenses and often their families didn't want to pony up the money to get it done. There was a time before I got my (non-learning-permit) DL when I thought that it was interesting that 14-year-olds could drive in Iowa. Now I consider it anything but cool to encounter the scooter/moped-brigade of comparable high-school-age teenagers in Scandinavia driving on bike paths, sidewalks and wherever else their machine powered-vehicles take them.
A lot of German and Scandinavian au-pair applicants who want to go to the US are not wanted by potential host families/employers in the US because the applicants aren't able/licensed to drive even in their home countries. It could be said that the age at what a German or Scandinavian person -- and even more so if narrowing down to female persons -- gets a driving license often says something about the socio-economic background of the person. In the US, it says much less.