Getting a Driver's License

7am yesterday, a decidedly motley, bleary-eyed two dozen or so males, your humble author among them, congregated at the main entrance to the Marriott, intending to get on a shuttle bus we'd been promised the day before for the big event: Getting our driving licenses. As you are well aware, women may not drive in the Kingdom, so, good or bad, eager or begrudging, pretty much every eligible male in the Kaust Schools signed on for the day's grand opportunity. Perhaps as a harbinger to our day, no bus showed for the group and, in due time, we were quickly resorting to our now common practice of breaking up into groups of four and catching the ubiquitous taxis of Jeddah, many of which brake with enthusiasm, often cutting each other off in order to over charge a group of four western men.

SA apparently accepts no other country's driver's license as valid, so even the four Arabic instructors among us, from countries like Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, were along for the ride and, like good Arabs, they were in the lead taxi, the rest of us, in true Formula One style, making a go of keeping up as speeds exceeded 120 kph on the city's roads. The Arabic speakers in the alpha-male driven car had directed their driver to the Licensing Bureau which, at first blush, might be where you'd want to go for a license. Unfortunately, they'd broken the one rule for KAUST employees in Jeddah, which essentially posits that all groups need a handler, and that you'd better not venture out on anything, anywhere, at any time un-chapperoned.

So, after a few minutes of confusion at the licensing spot, we headed to KAUST temporary headquarters, situated in a sleek, uber-modern office building, where we got to flash our nifty security IDs to the smiling guards as we made our way to the fourth floor meeting room for our presumed 8am meeting with our government handler/guide. 8am had become 9am, we were told upon arrival, so many of us spent the next hour attending to the business of copying various letters of employment and pay status for banks, passports and airline tickets for visa applications (in SA you need a visa to both exit and enter the country...), and any other business we could have the great KAUST folks help us with.

Finally, a bit after 9, two Saudi men came in, and so began the process of preparing us for our arrival at the driver's license place. Files were dutifully begun on each of us, replete with six photos per prospective SA driver (photos are a big business here - where do they all end up?), a copy of our employment letter, a copy of our passport, a copy of our current driver's license, and a letter of good standing from our 5th grade teachers (JK!). We then got on the bus, you know, the one that should have met us at 7am, and proceeded to the DoL.

Let's remind ourselves at this juncture, pre-DoL, that each of us had been making observations about driving and drivers in Jeddah and vicinity for the better part of a month, so it was not without trepidation that each of us contemplated taking a driving test on Jeddah's streets at the height of rush hour. Where is Michael Schumacker when you need him, more than one of us probably was wondering?

So, we arrived at the DoL, and rather than giving our files to a person and beginning a series of driving tests, we began what would be the six-hour process of getting in line and waiting, eventually having someone do some small thing to your file, before being directed to another section of the building, whereupon, you guessed it, we were asked to wait in another line.

The eye test was my favorite. We sat in a chair, looked at a mirror and, in so doing, were asked to determine the orientation of a block print E on the chart behind us. Since the first half dozen or so folks in the line were in the room with the person being tested, I noticed that the man testing each hopeful was following the same pattern of symbols for each wannabe driver, thereby making my test especially anticlimactic. In due course, the various papers in our dossier had been initialed, written on, stamped, and folded at least as much as a ten year-old passport of a foreign journalist. But the good part was still to come, because we still had not driven a car!

Finally, we were directed in twos and threes out a side door and motioned to sit in a waiting area along with about three dozen or so others. Of course, to get to this waiting area one had to cross the two-way street replete with, drivers taking the driving test, injecting a bit more excitement into the process with cars going at varying speeds in both directions under an extremely broad range of control parameters. The cars all looked like the taxis we get into each day, though we soon realized that these cars never saw the open road, and that all tests were conducted on the small, closed loop before us. I'm not sure if the testers or tested had been the deciding issue on this one, but given Jeddah's Wild West traffic, it only stands to reason that a higher rate of prospective driver/veteran tester survival is achieved by testing on a compound.

Once the KAUST guys started making their way to the front of the line, a special car appeared adjacent the waiting spot, and we were directed, in fours, to get into the car. The first person got in the driver's seat, put the car in gear, drove out of the spot about twenty five feet while turning to the left and then stopped and got out, whereupon the second person on the list switched places with the driver, put the running car in reverse (no time for seatbelts, blinkers, mirror checking, etc.!), and maneuvered the car back into its original spot. I think I actually drove for eight seconds, and yes, my tester growled at me when I began wasting his time by attempting to put on my seatbelt. One person didn't even drive the car at all and was asked to take driving lessons, while another applied the brake and the accelerator in copious quantities simultaneously, generating a bit more burned rubber to Jeddah's air while making limited progress. I think he passed. I'm guessing my 2008 Toyota had been driven by 12,356 drivers and had 83 miles on it! Don't ask about the brakes and clutch..

Now, with the end in sight, we were asked to wait in yet another line and, just as we were approaching the front, midday prayer started, the windows were shuttered, personnel immediately disappeared, and we were summarily guided out of the air-conditioned, reasonably comfortable waiting room into the now midday heat, where there was nowhere to sit and little shade. Most of us had not eaten since 6:45, if at all, and now, in the early afternoon, and with everything closed, we began parceling out what little water and food we'd collectively made off with much earlier that morning.

Finally, a half hour later, end of prayer meant back to business, which meant getting back in line. Two more lines and two more signatures later (for what I'm not sure...), we made our weary way out the door, our handlers seemingly proud of us for completing the endeavor. When we returned to the bus our driver was nowhere to be seen, so we began hailing taxis, and then, of course, our bus driver suddenly appeared, and we fled the taxis for the bus, leaving upset taxi drivers in our wake. And then we waited, and waited, as apparently a few, who hadn't managed to negotiate the lines and tasks quite as collectively, slowly made a reappearance from the DoL.

Walking back into the cool hotel at 1:45 was a huge relief and, after our now reflexive washing of hands, we quickly wolfed down our lunches before heading to 2 pm meetings. We're told our new SA driving licenses will be brought from the DoL by our handlers today - Inshallah! Of course, then we might have to venture out on Jeddah's roads, but that will be another story.

Your SA Chauffeur, David