Come for the food, stay for the ability to drive in 100 countries.

A while back I subjected myself to the grueling process of getting a driver’s license in Japan from scratch. This means no converting a license from another country and without attending driving school. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

Those who do have valid licenses in another country, however, will find the process much less stressful. In fact, it was recently discovered that Chinese tourists in Japan have been using this system as a loophole to upgrade their Chinese licenses to Japanese ones.

The reason is that a Japanese driver’s license falls under the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic along with 101 other countries that simply need an international driving permit (IDP) to drive on each other’s roads. China, however, is not a part of this treaty and has to set up agreements with each country individually. As a result, Chinese licenses can work for a few months in a few dozen countries but it’s a lot less convenient than the Geneva IDP route.

▼ It’s less about the actual Japanese license and more about the Japanese IDP

Image: Wikipedia

So, some Chinese drivers are opting to come to Japan, get a Japanese driver’s license, take it back home, and use it when they travel most anywhere in the world. That might seem like a huge hassle, but it’s surprisingly easy for those with the means. Residence in Japan is not necessary and a hotel can be entered as the address on the license.

The test itself is nothing compared to what I had to go through. The written tests are about a tenth of the size of a regular one and usually don’t contain those gotcha questions with ambiguous wording. Even the standard to pass is lower, with only 70 percent needed, compared to the 90 percent needed on a standard test for new Japanese license seekers.

Also, you can imagine my righteous anger back when I took my practical driving test and all the test-takers had to gather in a room while the police officer explained the courses for each type of test. After explaining how for my test I had to drive through extremely narrow S-curves, parallel park in a space tighter than the front of a Manhattan brownstone, cross train tracks the “right” way, stop on an upward slope with the parking brake while shifting gears in an automatic car, and much more, the cop then told international license takers how they should go straight, turn right, turn left, turn left, and stop.

▼ A news report on the recent rush of Chinese license seekers which also shows some questions from the written test, such as identifying a stop sign

In the above news report, one person in the long line of test-takers at a little after 5 a.m. told reporters that they didn’t even bother to study because the questions were common sense. The biggest hurdle is the waiting times, both in long lines and between the written and practical tests. But with the yen still fairly affordable, it’s not a big problem for someone to come to Japan for a few days to take the written test and then come back when the driving test date rolls around.

It’s a really strange dichotomy to have a test for Japanese residents be so insanely hard and the test for someone staying in a hotel for three days be so laughably easy when the exact same license is on the line. Perhaps because people visiting from most countries around the world with the same IDP treaty have no need to exploit this system, it hasn’t been a high priority for the Japanese government. It’s just that one country right next to us with 17 percent of the world’s population that can take advantage of it, so no big deal.

Readers of the news in Japan were largely aghast at how easy it is and worried it might cause problems when people holding Japanese licenses start getting into accidents around the world.

“Being able to use a hotel address is surprisingly lax.”
“Only seven out of ten questions? That’s even easier than the moped license test.”
“Japan is gearing up to be a major exporter of traffic violations worldwide.”
“How do they know those Chinese licenses aren’t fake?”
“All these people getting licenses with a simple quiz will get into accidents and show their Japanese licenses, making us look stupid.”
“Japanese people used to do that too. Go to another country, get a license, bring it home, and convert it to Japanese.”

When I first attempted to get my Japanese license, I was recommended by a few Japanese people to take a trip to Hawaii and get one there instead because it’s easier. Considering driving school in Japan can cost upwards of 200,000 yen (US$1,312), it was a viable option that some Japanese people took advantage of back in better economic times. So, it’s not like this is a uniquely Chinese thing to do.

Still, with a high-profile fatal car accident involving a Chinese national as the driver at fault currently in the news, it is very possible enough pressure will be put on the government to raise the difficulty of these tests in the future. But for now, if you’re planning a trip to a driver’s license office near you, be sure to get there early because they’re pretty busy these days.

Source: FNN Online Prime, My Game News Flash
Featured image: Pakutaso
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