Spanish driving license. Stressful, slow, expensive.

1.620 Euros, 30 hours of practice, 8 months in the making. Overall a lot of stress, a cult of driving, and many profit-driven attitudes.

Before I begin let me tell you that I filmed some stuff in these months, took notes, screenshots, and what-not, and all of these will result into a video about this situation but also about why tests in general may be a terrible idea. I’d suggest subscribing to our TROM Peertube channel because it will be posted there.

This is me in mid-december 2023, almost a year ago, with the driving manual trying to learn for my driving exam:

I was clueless about what was awaiting me for the next months.

I am in my mid 30s and never had a driving license. When I was at the ripe age of getting one, my family had no money and I was also too depressed to care about it. Since then I never really needed a driving license but since we plan to buy a motorhome at the end of this year and live full time in-it, I need one.

I am originally from Romania but I’ve been living in Spain for more than a decade. Since I barely speak any Spanish, however I do understand quite a lot, I thought what if I can do the driving school in English here in Spain… My Reddit-Research told me that this is a terrible idea since the translations from Spanish to English are bollocks, and on top of that the driving school in Spain is an absolute pain.

Before that I was tempted to go for the exam without even going through a driving school. There are some companies that provide online materials and help. But of course it is nearly impossible to make an appointment for the real exam, and now I know way too well how you have no chances to get your driving license without getting “enrolled” in an “autoescuela” (driving school).

So autoescuela it is.

I went and asked a few driving schools if I can do it in English. All told me that in theory yes, but the translations are garbage and the practice lessons can only be done in Spanish. I said I wanted to give it a try. How bad can the English be!? I had to pay a few hundreds of euros to enroll. They gave me a bag with a manual in Spanish, a pen, and a calendar 🙂

They also gave me access to the online materials. They were all in Spanish but had a Google Translate widget to allow you to translate into English. Wow. I thought at least some human may have translated the books into English since they provide these courses in English, but no…Google-Fucking-Translator.

Laughable translations, insane amount of stuff to remember.

I have red the entire manual in this googlish english, trying to figure things out. Luckily there were many pictures and I also know a bit of Spanish, so I could decipher it. I also had a physical manual in Spanish that I could use from time to time.

But the amount of stuff in this manual was overwhelming regardless of the language. Many kinds of vehicles, many rules depending on the vehicles, depending on the road, on the circumstances.

If on a narrow road that has no priority signs a car with a trailer meets a moped, who has priority? How about a motorhome and a truck? An animal driven carriage and a car? Two trucks? A donkey or a sheep? Fuck me, these people are mental! How about if this narrow road is inclined? These are things you really have to know! Ok except the donkey vs sheep, but the rest are real questions for the exam.

And since this B license in Spain also allows you to drive some kind of motorcycles, you get to learn all about motorcycles including how much a load can hang laterally on a motorcycle, what kind of helmets or gloves are recommended, when do you have to go with it for the technical inspection, how to lube the exhaust pipe :), and a fuck ton more.

You’ll have to know what kind of drugs give you what symptoms, and since I never used drugs I got to now learn about them. Made me curious indeed! The irony is that someone who uses drugs would do better at answering these questions that could fail me…get it!?

You have to learn about a million signs that you’ll never get to see in reality…

It is an absolute madness. It was clear to me that I can only remember some of these temporarily to pass the exam. No brain can do more than that. I’ve heard that there are around 12.000 questions for the Spanish language and some 4.000 in English. For the theory exam you’ll get 30 questions and you are not allowed to make more than 3 mistakes.

The theory questions. An absolute gem of a fuckery.

So now that we have a mountain of information, most of which absolutely irrelevant, imagine compiling questions out of that mountain in the most fucked up English possible. There is no way they have used automated translators for these, since they are so bad it looks intentional. Let me show you, and mind you these are the official practice tests I got from the driving school.

Here are a few more:

This was shockingly bad. Imagine trying to memorize these!

I was doing loads of these tests a day, and in the first month I felt like I cannot do it anymore. But I powered through it and after 2 months of daily tests, I felt ready to go for the exam.

The theory exam.

Not much to say about that. I simply went with the driving instructor and a few other students to whatever place you have to take the exam, you sit in front of a computer in a class with a lot of people, and start the exam. Basically do one of those retarded tests and hope to not fail more than 3 questions. Honestly I was quite confident that I will pass it since I prepared for 2 months.

To my surprise the exam test was not terribly translated into English, but then I got 3 questions about signs for buses and trams, and I was unsure if I answered them correctly.

I came home unconvinced that I passed. Around 6pm I could check the results online. I PASSED! Just 1 wrong answer! Wow I was so happy and I thought that the hardest part is gone!

I was dead wrong! Like, fucking wrong!

Practice tests….when?

19 of February I passed the theory exam. Now I am told the practice will start at the end of May…. So crazy. More than 3 months to wait…

I practiced driving with Sasha for quite a bit. Luckily it was off season and we have plenty of offroad nearby to practice.

Sasha was a great instructor. She would even give me chocolate treats when I’ll drive well :).

I got the hang of it pretty fast. Change gears, control the car, reverse, and all that. But let me say this: manual transmission in cars is one of the most stupid inventions. You have to learn how to press the pedals, which ones, the intensity, to then change the gears, learn the sounds of the engine, look at the RPMs, and all that. You can’t just accelerate or brake, you have to do a sequence of things in order to get that car to start or stop. Automatic car transmissions should be the norm worldwide by now….

But anyway, I got the hang of it. Or so I thought.

The cult business of driving.

Beginning of June. My first driving lesson. I got to learn that I am doing everything wrong. I got “schooled” by the instructor about controlling the car. It does not matter if you know how to drive it matters to do so in the way they ask you to. The first 10 lessons I got to realize that very intensively. You can park perfectly fine, but they won’t let you so unless you do it the exact way they teach you how.

If you dare to drive over the straight middle line, even for a few cm on narrow streets where it’s virtually impossible to avoid that, they will make you feel as if you have killed 18 baby kangaroos and 3 koalas. Don’t you dare to not stop at a stop sign, even if you see it clearly that it is safe to continue at very low speeds. More to that, when you stop wait 3 seconds before you start. I kid you not I was scorned one time because I only stopped for 2 seconds instead of 3. And did you know that in Spain they have the doble-stopado :)? The double stop. You stop for 3 seconds at the stop line, then if not enough visibility move forward a bit and stop again for 3 more seconds. Needless to say that they can fail you if you do or not do the double stop depending on the situation. Or if you move too much forward and do it.

Example in the image bellow. You come from the right side in this intersection (the way you look at the image). You can continue forward or left. There is a stop sign for you. You stop at the first red line I drew in the image. But there is no visibility to your right side where cars are coming from. In the summer that part that I circled with red is full of cars. Can’t see a thing.

So the instructor wants me to do a second stop around the second red line then look through the cars’ windows for the upcoming traffic since that second stop is also sketchy! WTF

Trust me you cannot see….a car coming from the side where you are supposed to look for cars can’t even see you stopped at the second stop. This is what they will see:

Spain is full of these situations. You can so easily bump into another car. Plus they want you to not stop too much into the intersection to make the incoming vehicles change speed or direction.

Point is they want you to drive perfectly while you are faced with mostly imperfect situation like this. You never do anything right. You drive too slow, too fast, too much to the right, too much to the left, you change the gears too soon, too early, too fast, too slow….It seems like they are never satisfied. But I think it makes sense when they run a business and their incentive is for you to get more lessons. It is so obvious actually.

I kid you not she would force me to drive 2 km within the speed limit. Like if the speed limit is 50 drive between 48 and 52. If it is 90, drive 88 to 92. She was so keen about that I ended up looking at the speedometer too much for anyone’s safety.

30 years of driving, not enough!

One of the students was a 50 something years old from Cuba. I did 2 practice lessons with him. In our stupid society of papers it does not matter if you already know how to drive and have a driving license. If Spain does not recognize that piece of paper you have to do the entire ritual like any new driver. So if you come from USA, Cuba or so many other tribes, and wanna live in Spain, you have to do the practices and exams. Just like any new student. How insane!

So this guy had his driving license for 30 years. Drove a lot. And yet he “could not drive” according to the instructor. He struggled to unlearn how to drive and do it all the exact way the instructor dictates. He was so stressed…poor guy. Many like him come from poor countries to work in Spain and they probably need a driving license for their job. To treat them so badly, make them lose all confidence….it is terrible.

This is a video with him under the pressure of driving – (all english subtitles are auto-translated but I checked them and are mainly accurate):

The guy took several lessons and then never came back. I remember when he last left….he took his seat-belt off, got out of the car, slightly smashed the door, and left saying nothing. I was sure he won’t come back.

Everyone was under a tremendous amount of stress. This is a girl who eventually failed the exam. She too looked so lost while driving because of the pressure the instructor puts on you.

I was calling the instructor “the Bear” since she looked kinda rough and tough 🙂 and her voice always felt heavy on you somehow :D. The Bear would grab your steering wheel at times in a very aggressive manner, despite no one being in any danger. Just to “prove” a point. I caught a few on camera. This is another student:

See how she was screaming at students? It is a very uncomfortable situation since there isn’t much you can do. She was not always like that but for sure everyone was overly stressed because of her attitude.

I started to realize that the Bear won’t let me get away with just 10 lessons as I was hopping in the beginning. I thought in the worst case scenario I’ll do 20 hours. But I ended up with 30 hours of practice because it was never good in her pockets eyes the way I or anyone else was driving. All other students were clocking easily over 40-50 lessons already.

I also tried at times to poke at the Bear and say the obvious, in my almost non-existent spanish. Here I was trying to say that it is impossible to drive the way she asks us to:

Of course she said it is impossible to drive perfectly but trust me she would ask us to do so….

Here I was trying to say how difficult this driving school is compared to other schools:

But yah, at the end of the day it is a business. She jokingly mentioned at times about how bad other people drive and how no one respects the rules, including her past students that now have driving licenses. What sane human would continue to “teach” others how to drive when you know the day after they get the license they’ll never drive the way you taught them!? But when this is “your job”, you get the cash, go buy some stuff. What else matters!?

This is the trade-society we live in. We do stuff not for the sake of the stuff we are doing, but to trade for something else we need or are made to want. Terrible incentive and end result.

Anyway…

30 hours of practice, the lower end of the spectrum.

I settled for 30 hours of practice maximum. I explained to the Bear that I cannot afford more. She was not that happy. We practiced more, and most of the time I’d come home super tired and with big headaches. I was taking a stomach pill before the practice and a headache pill after. One to not shit myself, and one to be able to sleep :))).

Here’s me waiting for the Bear Practices:

I can’t emphasize to you how stressful this entire thing was for me. I could barely sleep the night before the lessons, I thought nonstop about this fucking driving, and when driving I felt like doing an exam for 2 hours. We drove 2 hours, and 2 more hours sitting in the back observing the other student (I called the students rabbits). The Rabbits were terrified, the Bear furious and ready to eat you alive.

The Bear was a very bad teacher overall. If you read this, I am sorry but this is the truth. She would put you in sketchy situations to fail you, then tell you how bad you failed. “The signs are not visible here” I say. “You are right” she said, “but you need more practice to learn these routes, memorize them.”. She was spitting Euro signs while talking. At one point I directly told her that she is there to help me not to trick me. So, please, help me. She was a bit more helpful after I said that. Like wtf she should be there not to criticize you and fail you, but to actively teach you how to safely drive….

To be fair she taught me some good things too. And at times we could have sane and relaxed conversations. But overall the situation was super stressful and I consider her a bad teacher.

A language issue. Big one.

Spanish, English, Catalan!?

My theory exam was in english, but now the entire practice was in spanish. I understand some spanish, but not that well. Now imagine you are in traffic and she gives you a command saying “park in the left side behind the blue car”, but all you can understand is “park/stop in the left/right side behind/in front of the whatever the color she means car”. So I would not know what to do. By the time I tried to ask what she meant, and her to explain, I would fail the command. She did try to help a lot, I’ll give her that.

So for me it was way more difficult than it was for the others who spoke spanish. A lot lot lot more. Translating spanish “commands” while trying to control a car in traffic, is not an easy task at all for someone who never drove before.

What’sUpWithTheCatalans!? – WUWTC

Speaking of spanish, in this region people also speak catalan which is quite different from spanish. For the past years we felt a lot of anger coming from the “catalan people” towards anyone who does not speak catalan. A turmoil, a blanket of anger, a way to force the catalan language into survival mode by treating the rest with a lot of disrespect. I am currently writing an article/book about this situation and culture in general, but I’d say this:

Most of the time I would be in the car with another Rabbit who would refuse to speak spanish. They only spoke catalan despite telling them I only understand spanish. Mind you they all speak spanish perfectly fine. Since I had to spend 2 hours every practice day in the back of the car paying attention to the other Rabbit and signs and all that as the Bear instructed me to, the conversation between the Rabbits and the Bear was important. So speaking a language that not all understand despite being able to speak one that everyone does, is a sign of disrespect at best. I’d call it douchebaggery. But we kinda got used to this attitude from the “catalans” so we try to ignore “them”. Sorry for the generalization I am sure there are many nice “catalans” out there and I understand there is a cultural frustration among them. But this is fucked up regardless.

So overall the language situation was very difficult for me. You wonder….everyone in Spain learns english in school for many years, how come no one knows english here!? Hm…is school that useless? I guess so.

The Business. The EXAM!

Speaking of school and how useless it is. A few days before the exam the Bear was informed about what routes we will take for the exam day. It is like in school when they give you 50 main subjects to learn from for the exam, only to tell you 3 days before the exam day what subject you’ll be examined from.

So we practiced those routes a few days before the exam. We were also told that the examiner would first ask us a question, like how to turn on the high beam, where are the car’s registration papers, what fruit are the tires tasting like? 🙂 So she explained us all of these a day before the exam and while we were driving to the exam, so to not forget them because she said that everyone forgets these so quickly that she has to tell the Rabbits shortly before the exam.

You wonder, again, what is this whole thing about? After all of those thousands of questions for the theory exam, after tens of hours of driving practice on so many different routes…and now this!

Who goes last?

We were 3 Rabbits that would go for the exam. One Rabbit failed 4 times already and had countless of driving practices under her belt. Less money under the same belt for sure. Probably she spent thousands considering an hour of practice is 40 Euros and the Bear wants you to do 40-50 hours before the exam. You do the math!

We had 3 possible routes. The failed Rabbit was asked to choose first. She wanted to be second in line. The other Rabbit wanted to be first to “get over with it”. I was last. Last for the day, last before the August summer break in Spain when all spaniards hibernate.

The day has come, I only slept some 3-4 hours. I was less nervous than I should have been. I was already 8 months into the torture, minus 1.600 Euros. It was time to give birth.

I knew that it is so easy to fail, for the smallest kind of mistake. We did several exam simulations with the Bear and we all failed them multiple times. I also asked the Bear if most students fail and she said yes, most fail on the first try. Something I’ve heard multiple times in Spain.

I also knew that if I fail I would have to wait 2-3 months before I can re-do the exam. Plus I would need more driving lessons. OF COURSE MISS EUROBEAR!

On top of this we would have to move at the end of November out of Spain or somewhere else in Spain.

So if I would fail, I would be totally fucked.

But I put in my mind that I will fail so to not be too destroyed if I do. I knew that statistically I am more likely yo fail. I already found a place in the south of Spain where Rabbits migrate to get the driving license with a saner “autoescela”. “Takes a week and costs 450 Euros” one of the Rabbit told me.

37 degrees outside and waiting for my turn.

A bunch of Rabbits under the pale shade of some trees, waiting in heat and fear. Honestly I was not that scared. I accepted that I will fail. My turn came, the examiner seemed like a nice guy.

How do you turn on the high beam he asked me? I showed him!

And we went! But fuck! The route I practice was not the one he gave me. There was a slight 10% change that my exam route would be different, the Bear told me. Fuck! We were going towards the center of the town. Bad bad bad!

I will tell you now briefly the “bad” mistakes I made, as explained to me after the exam was over.

When I started I stopped twice at this stop sign to go to the left:

I did that because I wanted to be sure… I was told it was not necessary…

Here is a badly marked intersection and I had to go to he left:

I first stopped where I put that red block because of the stop sign, and I was told I stopped too early. I stopped again closer to the intersection to make sure no car is coming from the left. So 2 stops in a badly, or not at all marked intersection.

I caused no inconvenience for anyone.

At a roundabout I entered from the left lane, totally legal, then switcher lanes in the roundabout to the right to then exit it. They said I did it a bit dangerously.

And in this situation I had to go to the left. There was a green light and I went:

All good but I was told I didn’t look in the left and right sides to see if I am ok to turn in case anything comes from those sides. In the right they had red, in the left was no one. Whatever. In the end I did it ok.

Lastly I had to do this left turn:

Someone was crossing the street so I stopped before the crosswalk. All good, but the examiner did not see the man crossing so he thought I just stopped for a bit… That’s on the examiner but it counts as a lost point.

After the exam the Bear was criticizing me a lot. She said she would not pass me. On the way back home she was insisting I get more driving lessons. I said let’s wait for the results and we talk after.

I had to wait till 6PM to see the results. I was checking the website every 10 minutes. Because of the Bear I thought I did not pass. Then I saw APTO! Meaning I passed!

I lost some 7 points out of 9. So I PASSED! Fuck you Bear! 🙂

That’s fucking it!

I was so happy that the torture is over and now I have this driving license for life. I also quickly got to realized that now I have to re-learn how to drive. Yah…. The car we used for the autoescela had all sorts of driving assist features, like if you are on a hill and want to start and drive, the car will help you out. Clutch in the middle, wait 3 seconds, and it starts. Try to do that with many other cars that have no such feature and you’ll slide backwards like a lubed turtle. That car also had no hand break…. So yah I had to re-learn how to drive now.

And in a typical spanish-slow-sloth manner they said I will get my driving license in 3 months :)). Hard to print a bloody plastic thing ha?! To my shock I have received it a few days ago, almost after 3 months of waiting. Shocking that it was not delayed further.

For the past months I was able to drive because I had a printed paper saying that I am waiting for the “real” license.

All in all this is a big bullshit ritual all because of money. In no sane society people would engage in this bullshit if they were to do it for the purpose of the work they do. Never.

Also, if we rely on cars for transportation, which is primitive, then at least all schools should teach children how to drive, for free.

Oh, and the first time I went out with the car after getting my license, I broke my middle finger while trying to Tarzan on a rope into a pool of water. I had to drive back with a hand and a half, for an hour.

My driving experience now is been like that. But I dedicate this broken finger to the autoescuela business!

Now that the bullshit is done, I do not want to hear about the driving rules and nonsense. I forgot 90% of all I learned from the driving school. I also suspect not too many people complain about this ridiculous situations since most Rabbits are young ones, freshly produced by a mandatory school with nonsense rules that you have learn to respect. They are used with respecting bullshit, so autoescuela is for them yet another thing they need to pass and then move on.

After a few months of driving now, I realize even deeper how bullshit the driving school is. You learn to drive, and learn the signs, while you are driving.

Now I am eager to drive a motorhome and start a new kind of life….