How to get an American Driver’s License ~ By Bo Il Seo

First of all, thanks for reading this blog!

In my opinion, almost all international students want to get a license in America. American is really big with huge amount of land between the cities. If the city you live in is not a big city, then the transportation is not usually as good as it would be in a big city like New York or LA. Therefore, I think if you are planning to live a long time in America, then a driver’s license is the most important thing in America for making your life easier and to make it easy to get to school. As a result, I will show how to get a license step by step. I hope this information could be useful for you guys.

Here are the steps ~

1. Get prepared for a lot of paper work.
1) You will need a letter of permission from your real parents which shows they agree that their kid’s may get an American license and liability insurance.
2) You will need a permission letter from your international company or coordinator.
3) You will need a social security denial letter.
4) You will need to bring your I-20 and your passport to show you are living in America legally.

2. Decide whether you are going to driver training school or not.
- If you are under 17 years old (American age), you must to go to driver training school or go to take classes for learning how to drive.
- If you are older than 17 years old you do not need to go to driver training school, because you can study alone or you can learn from anybody who can drive.
• I recommend to go to driver training school, because it is way more safe to learn and easy to study — just like following directions at school. Also, you can learn about the written test and driving skills test together. However, you need to pay for school.

3. After you have all the documents you need you may qualify to take the written driver’s exam.
- After finish the classes, you get a date for your test and on that day you take the test.

4. After you pass your written test you have to next prove you can drive a car skillfully by passing the driving skills test. .
– Practice real driving with your host family, or you may need to pay someone to be with you in the car while you practice. _
- If you can pass the skills test, you may get your American license.
Sadly, you cannot get insurance for driving a car until you are 18 – unless someone you know can add you to their policy. It is also very expensive – maybe $800 a year or more. Otherwise, driving in American is a lot of fun.

Well done!
There are lots of cars on the roads over here – but it is not as crowded as some European or Asian cities.