Passing the test was a suprise for me, but I can't say that I wasn't prepared. Because I didn't want to fail, I decided to go down to the Naminoue Driving School and practice drive for an hour. There's no way to make a reservation for practice driving, but if you go down and apply to drive, you probably won't have to wait more than an hour. Here you'll get a chance to get a real feel for the course, and maybe some tips for passing the test (mostly in Japanese though...).

The driving instructor gave me a few tips and said I'd pass the test without a problem. He was right.

 Here's a summery of the tips he gave me.

•    Don't drive aggressively. Be fluid and smooth. 

•   Make sure you stop before the line on the road at all stop lights and signs.

•   Make sure you reach 40 km/h in all long straight aways.

•   Make sure you reach 30 km/h in all short straight aways (half the width of the course).

•   Slow down to under 20 km/h in all turns.

•   Check your appropriate blind spot, turn on your blinker, check your mirror, the move over to the left or right side of the lane before you             turn. Like this:

•   You don't need to be overly expressive with your movements, just do them thoroughly.

•   Turn on your turn signal about 30 meters (100ft) before any turns.

•   Also, make sure you don't hit a curb.

There are two possible courses you will have to drive. Click here to download the images: Course 1 , Course 2

 I spent a lot of time mentally preparing for the test. I think this is what helped me out the most. I visualized the course and doing the look, blinker, mirror, over, turn motions in the appropriate order. It might sound strange, but just try to close your eyes and go through the motions, mentally and physically. Do this until it becomes natural, and you shouldn't have any problems doing it for real on the test. One more thing, if you haven't driven on the left before, the turn signal is on the right side. I accidentally turned on the windshield wipers several times during my practice test, and one guy taking the real test did it too. That's a sure way, not to fail, but to panic yourself on the course.

If you have any questions, please post them here on our forums. 

I hope this information has been useful. Here are some more links to other people about the driving test.  

Okinawa JET driving information.

Tips for passing the driving test. 

Information from the Naha License Center. (Japanese Only) 

Map to the Naha Driving Center 

All Images ©OkinawaForums.com 2007 

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