Licensed Driver

Today I obtained a license by pure grace.

After a week of looking through worthless materials in search of a driver´s manual, I was overly nervous for my appointment today. I shouldn´t have been. Misa warned me that getting a license is easy, it´s just a business. If I provide the money, the privilege to hold one more card with my own name on it comes. But as per usual, I assumed my experience would be different. I believed my circumstances to hold me back; Spanish level, being a foreigner, etc. 

So I searched to study the rules, to no avail. I took practice tests that had questions I hoped to never memorize….

Then I arrived at the CIS, with female police officers in bullet-proof jackets to greet me at the door, surprisingly much more polite than the Department of Licensing workers I had experienced in the past. I was ushered to take a seat and wait for the next available staff. While I waited, I watched two women at the counters take their computerized test right in front of me. It came as no surprise to me, confidentiality isn´t a big issue here. 

At the head nod indicating a staff member was ready to assist me, I stood and passed over my documents. Passport, residency card, and my unique CURP, like a social security number. My proof of address was also passed over, an electricity bill that we borrowed from the neighbor, obviously with zero indication of it belonging to me. And with that, I passed the first stage.

Now came the test. The staff removed his computer from his desk and placed it up on the bar for me to be able to see. Rather than handing me his mouse to go through the questions on my own, he commented that I tell him my response and if I have any questions to just ask. The first two questions were great, written half in Spanish and half in English, as though specifically for a person like me. But by the third question, when an incredibly ambiguous question was asked, we engaged in conversation about what a traffic intersection looks like and who would have preference in a specific situation. At the statement of my answer, instead of simply clicking the response, he again repeated the question and the possible solutions. It was my subtle clue that I should choose a different response. With the next question, a term came out of which I had never heard, the ¨camellón.¨ He tried to give me a synonym, but when the synonym failed to be similar enough, he simply hung the cursor over the correct response, like fish bait in the water waiting for me to catch on. And so I was pulled through the water, now unable to be released from the hook on my own. The staff reeled me in through that tenth question and congratulated me into his hands with my perhaps undeserved passing score.

He printed a barcode and sent me to the payment line. Two kiosks were in use with a line waiting behind them. As I approached, I noticed that it was not six or seven people long as I had assumed, but wound around the wall leading to the back hallway and even farther around the next corner toward the back door. And so I waited, enjoying taking part in sending text messages just as all those around me despite the numerous signs that restricted cell-phone usage in this building. I wished I had brought my book.

After payment, I returned to the staff. He had me sign a paper, and I was sent over for my picture. Five minutes later, I was handed a bright shiny card proving me to be a licensed driver in Mexico, with my address printed using our neighbor´s electric bill. 

I walked out, believing Misa more than ever and understanding why the driving is so poor here. So aggressive. People don´t pull over for emergency vehicles. I feel like we could die several times a day. There was no driving test. There was no vision test. And the knowledge test was more than just aided. The truth is, money goes a long way. The only difference between me and those ¨illegally¨ driving is $75 and an hour of my life.