Getting your Japanese driver's license in Fukushima (2016/2017 edition)

This blog post is for all the people out there who are currently in or are planning to move to Fukushima Prefecture in the immediate future. Fukushima, unlike Tokyo, is more mountainous and spread out, and even if you live in a densely populated city like Koriyama, it would be a very good idea for you to have a car, or, at the very least, a driver's license. Getting one is easy if you're from almost any [western] European country, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. But this blog post is not for you. It's for the people from the other countries, including, unfortunately, America.
For those of you who can easily convert, there's no walkthrough needed. Book an appointment at either the test center in Fukushima City or Koriyama and take with you:

• a Japanese[-speaking] friend
• your current license and a JAF translation of it
• older licenses if you've held onto them
• a 30 x 24 mm photo of yourself (go to the 7-11; 200 yen gets you six of them)
• a residence certificate
• your resident card
• your passport

It's that easy. For everyone else, there's additional testing required.

(This is a side note to any American readers planning to move here, particularly those who are living in the DC Metro area. Move to Maryland. They're the only US state as of this post with a reciprocal driving agreement with Japan. If you're there for at least three months, and can prove your previous driving history (e.g. saving old licenses), then you get to do the easy conversion process. Trust me, you want to do this.)

(UPDATE, 5.1.2017: Washington state residents, I have good news for you.)

I wrote a series blog posts reflecting on my overall experience with the conversion process. You can read them here: take 1, take 2, take 3, take 4, take 5, take 5.5, and take 6. These are my own personal experiences and may not apply to you, depending on what day you go and who's your proctor. For a more detailed walkthrough of the course, you should read yesicanusechopsticks's post from 2002. It's the same course. There's also a map layout that they give you at the test center; an annotated photo is in one of my posts.

Other than that, here's a list of very important pointers that you should observe:

• Do not wait to do this. From the day I booked the appointment to the day I passed, it took me three months. If you haven't come to the country yet, get your IDP to take effect the day before you land here. That'll give you the full year, but that still gives you no excuse to wait. Plus, when I called for an appointment in July, the first opening was in September. So I'll say this again for effect: do not wait to do this.
• The longer conversion process is only available in Fukushima City. Sorry, Aizu and Iwaki, but the center in Koriyama doesn't do the longer conversion process. You'll have to hitch a ride if you don't have a car.
• It takes time to get to the test center. By car, from northern Aizuwakamatsu, it's an hour and a half one way on National Route 115. Don't bother with the expressways; in my case, you pay 1750 yen from there one way to shave off 10 minutes.
• Between your travel time, waiting to take the test, and waiting for the test results, this will consume your business day. (If you aren't going by car, it will consume your whole day, as the train and bus schedules are spread out.)
• Take the friend for your first trip to get the paperwork out of the way. No one at the test center speaks any English. For subsequent visits, if you know some basic Japanese like I do, you'll manage on your own. Don't be afraid to ask them for clarifications if you are confused about language or concepts, but also don't be surprised if they make it even more confusing.
• Pick a transmission. If you don't know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle and don't wish to learn, stick with the automatic test. But be warned: you are limited to only automatic vehicles. If you drive a manual car with an automatic transmission, and you get stopped or in an accident, you're fucked. Like time in prison fucked. Be sure to tell the clerks which transmission you want to test on.
• Book a lesson at a local driving school. Don't be a cheapskate about it. You don't have to go for full tuition; they can do individual lessons. Tell them what you're fucking up on and they'll give you some pointers and training to help you out. See part 5.5 for my experience with that.
  
• The written test is annoying. You have the 10 questions and five minutes to answer them. The questions require you to think, too. See take 1 for an example. Don't take the written test lightly; I barely passed with seven out of ten right. I've also met a guy at the center who'd actually failed the written test, and he wasn't allowed to take the driving test until he passed the written one, which he had to come back for. (It'd actually be a good idea to get a copy of JAF's Rules of the Road and read it for the diagrams and whatnot.)
• Go walk the course during lunch. Is it raining out and you don't have an umbrella with you? Buy one from the convenience store on the first floor and go anyways. Is it not your first time? Go walk it again. Also, if you're American and not used to measuring distance in metric units, actually measure how long 30 m is on that track. They give you a course map before your first attempt, as well as a bilingual packet containing some generic pointers for taking the test.
• You will not pass the first time. That one guy online who says that he did was an outlier. It took me six times, and two other people I know also went six times (and they were on automatics). Those five prior times, every time I went, everyone who took the test that day, regardless of their age or nationality, failed. Even during my last time, I made some errors that would've gotten me failed any other day. So get used to the process of going back and forth to Fukushima City, because you will be doing it a lot.
• Your course completion must be 100% perfect and without error. You are, to put it bluntly, the proctor's bitch. He can, and will, fail you for just about anything under the sun. Don't bother with trying to figure out the whole points system. I've already done it for you.
• You took a turn or a curve (>15 km/h) too fast? 不合格。
• Didn't turn on your blinker at approximately 30 meters from a turn? 不合格。
• Got too close to a stop line? 不合格。
• Didn't swerve to the curb/center line prior to taking the turn? 不合格。
• Didn't "properly" check at every turn and maneuver? 不合格。
• Didn't pump your brakes when slowing down and/or downshifting? 不合格。
• Didn't stop directly at the pole at the end? 不合格。
• Didn't check traffic before you got out of the car?  不合格。
• Said proctor will also try to act as obtuse as possible, even to an insulting degree. I had one proctor who would give me three, and only three, pieces of feedback after completing the course. If there were four things, I'd find out the fourth the next time. Another tried to go behind my back and have my translator booking my appointments tell me a piece of feedback, despite me being in the same car with him and having already received feedback from him.
• Either they will let you book your next attempt after your failure, or they'll ask you to have your translator book an appointment on your behalf. (It depends on when and whom the clerk is). And no, you can't book multiple tests at once. (I've asked.) When you go back for subsequent tests, be checked in, including completing all required paperwork (yes, you have to resubmit the same form every time), by 1130 hrs. The clerks disappear for lunch, and testing starts as soon as the break is over, so if you miss the cutoff time, you don't get to test that day.

And finally, one more piece of advice.

• Your chances of passing on any given day are actually random.

Wanna know how I know this? Every time the first five times I went, they failed everybody there. Japanese and foreigners. On the sixth time I went, I made those two serious mistakes that would've failed me any other day. And remember Nautiyal? Well, if you've searched the Google already regarding the driving test at this particular driving center, you may have noticed this particular Blogger post from an expat couple posted about five years back. He made the exact same mistake at the bicycle marking that they did.

And he still passed.

Do not ask me how this whole fucked-up system works. I can't tell you, and when I tell this to other Japanese people, they are as confused as I am. I am 100% convinced after this entire debacle that the passage process is up to whatever mood that the chief at the driving center is currently in, and that if it wasn't universal for everyone testing that day before, it is now.

That's all the advice I can give. Of course, you can always take the Japanese route and go for full tuition at a driving school. That'll cost you around 25-30万円, and the written test is all in Japanese. But you're probably broke as you're reading this, so take this and all other advice with a grain of salt and try not to strangle the proctor.

Good luck, kid; you're actually gonna need it.

-wp