Getting a Swedish Driver's License

It's been months since I last updated this blog and I don't have any great excuses other than I've been preparing baby stuff, studying for tests and bearing the crappiest and darkest month in Sweden. I passed out of SFI (Svenska för Invandrare- Swedish for Immigrants) and then had to take the SAS test (Svenska som Andra Språk- Swedish as a Second Language). According to these tests I apparently have the Swedish level of a 7th or 8th grader.

But the real accomplishment of the month is I passed my driver's license test!!! This may seem like small potatoes to anyone not familiar with the Swedish system, but I assure you, it was an expensive and time consuming ordeal... It goes like this:

1) Apply for a driver's permit

2) Halkbana: Spend 4 hours (mandated) with a group of 11 other people driving as fast as you can on a slippery road course and trying to avoid cones. This actually was really fun and useful. Then we talked about accidents and saw cars like this. There was a lot of the word "slippa" used. As in the instructor hoped that we are able to avoid meeting such a fate.

3) Riskettan: Spend 3 hours (mandated) in a classroom talking about alcohol, wild animals and masculine and feminine driving traits. This also included some very gruesome, and real, footage of traffic accidents. It makes you want to avoid driving and being near any road. Ever.

4) Spend hours and hours reading and rereading 400+ pages of detailed information about such things as how to safely set up a trailer and towing weights, how to drive in different scenarios, eco-driving, the difference between motorways and carriageways (yup! you also have to familiarize yourself with British English too!) how each of the greenhouse gases released from cars affects the environment and humans, catalytic converters, hundreds of signs and what the color of each represents, how to pass on highways, parking rules, reaction speed and braking distances, how many meters away your lights can detect people in light and dark color clothes, statistics of accidents by age groups and by type of accident, knowledge of everything under the hood, child safety and how each component of the car functions (brakes, steering, etc.) among other things.

5) Take 10 online practice tests. Each test has 70 questions, which looks like this:

6) Study more.

7) Take hour long driving lessons where you are reminded that you know nothing about the right hand rule. And if you don't look in the rearview mirror every 5 seconds you will probably fail.

8) Sign up for the theory test, a computerized test of 71 questions on a computer. You have to get at least 52 right out of 65 to pass.  There are 5 uncounted questions, but you have no idea which ones they are. This test was hard, way harder than the questions I prepared with. My face got all hot and I was in full panic mode. Most of my questions were scenario questions, for example, a picture of a curve on a country road with a dotted line that turns to a solid line just where there are people picking berries on the side of the road. With most questions there are 4 possible options you can pick from and you must show that you know how to best handle that situation. Or it might be 4 traffic signs and you have to pick which of them (or potentially none) would be seen on a highway.

9) Sign up for the driving test, a 45 minute drive which includes safety checks (lights, tires, brakes, steering and where to find the radiator coolant, motor oil, brake fluid and battery.) Lucky for me I unknowingly signed up for the worst place in the country to take the test: Farsta. http://www.metro.se/stockholm/svarast-i-landet-att-kora-upp-i-farsta/EVHlfB!bJ18WDurVQHns/

Many people don't pass these tests (an average of 46% failure rates in all of Sweden.) When I was still taking my theory test one guy started yelling YES! YES! FINALLY PASSED AFTER 5 MONTHS!!

But my my driving test wasn't bad, the man judging my skills was friendly but not overly chatty. I heard stories of Americans being taunted for their reputation as bad drivers and having to defend themselves while taking the test (which didn't end well.) The traffic school prepared me pretty well for what the instructors would be looking for. I did some small safety checks inside the car, drove on small roads and highways, parallel parked, reversed directions several times and then came back to the center.

Despite all the stress and time, I do think it's helpful to know much of the info and a little embarrassing that I previously lacked basic knowledge about car functions. It also made me think about people driving in Sweden who don't understand the traffic rules here. I listed some of the biggest differences below that I found from driving in the US:

- The righthand rule. Unless you are on a main road (which is shown, sometimes at random, by a yellow diamond sign) you must slow at every junction in case some car arrives on the righthand side, and in which case, they have the right of way. And the fun thing about this is that a road can change from a main road to a non-main road several times within a short span.
- On the highway the car driving on the right lane absolutely can not go faster than the cars on the left.
- If you are involved in an accident you are required to stay there as long as it takes. If the accident involves personal injury, you can be imprisoned if you leave the scene (even as a witness!)
- If you miss a stop sign or run a red light your license will be revoked on the spot.
- No turning on red lights.
- 0.2 mille of alcohol in your body will get you up to 6 months in jail and if it's 1.0 or above you can expect 6 years in jail, plus fines according to your income on both accounts.

I found the severity of traffic offenses really interesting, especially in light of the fact that you might get a similar jail sentence for driving drunk with a 1.0 level as for murdering someone.