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Comment by tokai | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't it only take a couple of weeks to get a drivers license in the US?

No. You walk in and take a written test. If you pass, then you have to take a driving test. Assuming that you have a car. Or a friend with a car. Or money to rent a car.

Assuming that you can find a car to drive, you will take a lap around the block to demonstrate that you can steer, stop and maybe parallel park.

The barrier to entry is pretty low.

Good luck renting a car without a driver's license.

Driving schools will give in-car lessons to adults, and let you use their car for the test, for a fee; that's the form of "renting a car" that's useful for this case. In my state the requirements are looser for adults than for teenagers, under the assumption that adults are generally more responsible or have driven before.

In Germany, you take individual driving lessons and group classes on traffic rules including a mandatory first aid class.

in Holland, you get a bicycle and never regret it

That's even more based and walkabilitypilled.

Holland is also pretty damn flat

Of the 50 states, we actually have one smaller than Holland.

Are you implying that the US is cursed, forever pathologically unable to have bikeable places, because it's too large?

If only the US was smaller...

This is very common in the US, even though it is not typically mandated. Technically you can just go take the test if you're up to it, and some people do exactly that with no more training than they got from mom & dad. But a lot of kids take the classroom route. Not every parent wants to teach.

You are required to take and pass paid courses to get a license in most states these days. It was a huge barrier to a lot of the guys in the halfway house. Just coordinating getting to these classes via the bus was a pain. Also, if you return 15 minutes late to the halfway house the US Marshals come pick you up and back to jail you go, so missing a bus has pretty steep consequences that make people avoid any additional bus trips such as getting to drivers training class (you are required to work so you have to risk the bus at least twice a day no matter what).

You need to pass a road test which they are pretty picky with along with a written test. The written test had a lot of random crap you would never use imo. Honestly not too difficult but I imagine it might be for someone in and out of prison life.

I don’t know much about prison/jail but I do agree it should focus on re-habilitation they should have systems to help you study and get a drivers license while in there for example.

No. And definitely not for a CDL.

Just looked it up. The CDL is on average acquired over seven weeks. Not quite a couple of weeks, but not a long time either.

It costs several thousand dollars in fees and 7 weeks.

That's a lot for an ex-convict.

With no driving experience? No… And they were talking about a commercial license anyway.

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