For the past three weeks I have been without a driver’s license.
Three weeks ago I ventured to the Führerscheinstelle to exchange my Ontario driver’s license for a German one. After entering Germany you are allowed to drive using your home country driver’s license for up to six months. A Canadian license to drive the equivalent of an Ontario G-class vehicle can be exchanged directly for a German license of the same class. In my case I also had a license to drive a motorcycle in Ontario and that cannot be exchanged–I would have had to take a test for this.
The process is pretty well documented at various places online: bring your original license, a translation, and a passport photo to the Führerscheinstelle. For a translation I brought the International Driver’s License that I bought in Ontario before I left. I also happened to have a passport photo left from when I got my residence permit.
Originally I went to the Karlsruhe city Führerscheinstelle. I was lucky enough to encounter a few people who spoke enough English to direct me to the right office (they do everything by the first letter of your last name here). When we got to the question “where do you live now?” and I answered I was shuffled out of the office and go to the Landratsamt Karlsruhe, a regional administration office.
I had been to this office building before for my residence permit. I managed to find the Führerscheinstelle all on my own and was helped by a lovely young lady who spoke enough English for us to get by. I am fairly certain that dealing with an English person made her day–she was laughing and telling coworkers in the back as I was left filling out a form.
As part of the process I had to give up my Ontario driver’s license. This meant physically handing it over at the time of my application. What surprised me is that: I got nothing back in return–no temporary license, no letter, no photocopy. I asked “what happens if I get stopped?” The young lady answered “just tell them about this and they’ll call us”. Somehow I doubted someone would answer the call if I was pulled over at 2 a.m. but I didn’t push it.
With my six months rapidly approaching, and a travel schedule that would make it difficult to pick up the license immediately after I returned from France, I was a little nervous. I even started making excuses for myself, like “the six months isn’t from date of landing, but rather date on the residence permit”, or “the six months reset when I was in Canada over Christmas”. And while it is possible that one of those is true it’s not the sort of thing you want to assert to a police officer without knowing for sure.
Luckily the license was made available sometime late last week, and today I went to pick it up. This time I wasn’t lucky enough to be working with anyone who speaks English, but the process was pretty straightforward. I was notified by mail that the license was available via a post card; the post card, my passport (for identification), and 30 Euros was brought to the Führerscheinstelle where the post card and money was exchanged for my new driver’s license.
So I now have an EU driver’s license. It looks pretty similar to the one prominently pictured on Wikipedia’s Driver’s License page. One neat thing, though, is that they misspelled the city of my birth. I guess the “H” I wrote in Halifax looked more like an “M” to them. It doesn’t specify a province or country, though, so I suppose it is possible that there is a Malifax somewhere.