told when I had to go to the German civilian driving test office (well before the E.U., this was in October of 1980).
Being in the U.S. military and having a U.S. state driver's license with a commercial rating on it, made it simpler for some reason. Under the "Status of Forces Agreement" (just SOFA for short) in effect at the time, I didn't have to have all of the driver's school time to be allowed to take the tests. They couldn't just let me go on with only the military license, since they wanted me to drive some fairly heavy vehicles, buses and middle-sized trucks mainly. (NOT semi-trailers, just single-body stuff; no hinge in the middle.)
I had to take the written exam, as well as the reaction time tests, the eye tests, and a practical driving test in a 5-tonne diesel military truck (an "M54" if you understand the military nomenclature). It was NOT a fun day for me.
When I hit the door, they already didn't like me, since I was in uniform, had the paperwork to more or less bump the line and mess up their schedule, and I was "one of those Americans."
I got a lot of that hostility to go away when I didn't throw that paper in their faces and demand to be first off the mark and mess up their schedule. I asked that they squeeze me in when it was least inconvenient, instead - which got a lot of the pressure off right away. (I think I would have failed no matter what if I had tried to be the big-shot, but I had no intention of ever doing that, unless they gave me no choice.)
When I sat down to take the written exam, that was when the examiner told me that the average was at least three attempts to get through the whole process, and not to feel bad about having to come back.
When I got a perfect score on the written, got the eye and reaction tests out of the way without a hitch, and was waiting for the driving test, they were sure I was going to blow it before getting out of the parking lot.
I didn't, somehow.
I managed to get out on the street in that huge truck, go half-way across West Berlin, including trundling it down the Ku-damm, get it onto the Autobahn, off again, and back to the big parking lot thing at the license office, where they made me PARALLEL PARK IT!!
I also had to back that behemoth of a truck around a course made with a lot of traffic cones, without hitting any, with a timer running. Couldn't go too slow, that counted against you, as well as hitting any cones. Never understood the "go fast" part. I figure if you can do it slow and make no troubles, faster wasn't worth it. Whatever. I went faster, to keep them happy.
Minor problems only, nothing that they could write me up and fail me for. No infractions, no violations, didn't hit any cones, only took a few seconds too long to back through the course, all the rules were followed to the letter, and I even got the stupid parking right, on the first go.
AS IF anyone would ever parallel park this kind of truck! I think they were just having me on, there. Getting it into the marked lines was just luck, I had NEVER tried to parallel park a 5-tonne truck before!
I was sweating bullets before this was all over, and they were shocked that I passed first time out.
So was I. But I got the license, and my Colonel / Commanding Officer was happy, so I was happy. I guess me having the license made things easier for him. I was newly arrived and my security paperwork had not caught up with me. That left them with an NCO and nothing to use him for, and nowhere to be working. Getting dumped into the motor pool for a few weeks made it simple for someone.
I drove shift buses around to housing areas and brought people back and forth to the main base, picked up officer's club "tours" and took them back to the train station so they could get back out to West Germany, hauled a few loads of supplies around to the various intel sites (Marienfelde, mostly) and tried to keep my nose clean.
Then my other 'handlers' caught up with me, got my security situation straightened out FAST, and I left the motor pool behind pretty quickly. It was a fun two-and-a-bit weeks, though. But I never again drove one of those trucks, not even once, since then. Some 2 1/2 tonne (Deuce and a half) machines, but nothing bigger than that.
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