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My experience attempting a driving license test in Dubai

12th December 2024, 13:08 by Ananth Iyer

I spent nearly 10,000AED overall. But money well spent I say!

BHPian svsantosh recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

My Dubai Driving License is a 2 part story.

1st part - 2022

I had joined a Dubai company in 2021 Nov and after settling down a bit I managed to open my driving file in Dubai Driving Center - DDC. Got my eyes checked and opened a file and booked a date for theory classes. This DDC center was right across the street and I could see the place from my apartment. This memory of the school across the street would come back to haunt in the future...!!

This video is taken from this DDC video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTeIdxINoO8

The 1st day in the school went in 1+1 hour in 2 parts for reading the theory, mostly common sense, some things are new to Indian drivers. Roundabout and Right of way/priority and merging can be new things to learn.

19-Apr-2022, Theory Classes

Booked a online test slot immediately after the theory learning classes. I took all of 30 mins in a 2 hour slot to pass it, got all but 1 question MCQ correct. The examiner was like 'sabash beta, ab tera DL 1 month me ajayega'!

20-Apr-2022, online test

Next we moved to road & parking classes. Dont recall but there were lot of 30min classes taken. Since I had a Indian DL for over 10 years, they reduced the number of mandatory classes. However I was bad at driving outside India, little did I know then!

The road classes were fun, learnt a lot from various Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and SriLankan Ustaad's (teachers). Parking was equally fun, one Pathan helped a lot to understand the GPS guided smart parking test, failed twice and passed the third attempt. Ever fail means you take 8 classes (4 hours) of training again and it will cost a lot of time and money.

Smart parking is a big challenge in Dubai and it can be seen in the youtube video above. But there are minor mistakes, if you understand that math then you can plan to make small errors and avoid major - instant fail mistakes.

Once you complete the smart parking test, I started the internal (kuccha) test where the school evaluates if the student can face the government or does he need more classes. This also can be expensive if you fail, if the internal senior teacher fails you/deems you unfit for the govt final examiner, then he will put you back 8 classes again!

July-22 (and 2023)

Then I lost my job! Had to rush back to India after the July22 Kuccha fail. I left the driving file open since I had cleared the parking and had spent close to 4000AED already on this process. I was hopeful to get a break again.

2nd part - 2023

For 5-6 months was free lancing for a company in Bangalore, In Oct22 my interview process started with another company, 4-5 web/zoom calls later got the offer letter, with family visa. On 8Dec22 I flew into Dubai from Bangalore just to cancel the existing valid visa, and had lunch and flew back to Blore by 1030pm. It is by far the craziest thing I have done in my life, carried literally nothing other than a power bank & passport to Dubai and cancelled the visa and had a sandwich and chai, and flew back.

So.... Sharjah..!!! 1st Jan 2023 landed in Sharjah. For those who do not know, Sharjah is a next door neighbor to Dubai but a very different city! Lets say 60~% of people in Sharjah only live here for cheaper rentals/schools and standard of living. Not fancy like Dubai, also means more desi types than compared to the Glam-Dubai.

I checked the option of transferring the traffic file from Dubai to Sharjah, it was super complicated and everyone said to close that file and open a new file in Sharjah. But I had already spent 4000+ AED in Dubai the previous year. I decided to take a bus every saturday sunday morning to Dubai and back to get it done with. But my current job was a hectic one with lots of international travel and locally a company car was provided, so progress was very slow in the license part.

Took some mandatory road classes again. Took Kuccha test, failed once more, more road classes, cleared 3rd Kuccha.

Took 1st final road test, 4Apr2023, failed, I decided I am bogged down because of this effort and gave up to concentrate on my new work. Finally in Dec23, again started classes, failed 2nd final on 2Jan24 and again road classes and finally cleared on 16Jan24. It was a perfect Birthday gift for my pre-teen son who was longing to roam around the country in our own car.

And this came at a cost, getting a Dubai license after age of 40, especially if you are hard tuned to the Desi style of driving and cannot adapt to the correct way of international driving standards can set you back by lot of failures.