Esmeralda's Road

When I moved to Italy in 2015 I couldn’t believe that my US driver’s license and 12 years of driving experience were not enough to grant me an Italian drivers license. On the other hand, Italians can never believe that the legal driving age in the States is a whole five years earlier than the legal drinking age of 21. Here they are both the same –18.

I started driving in LA at fifteen and never looked back. I loved being the friend that drove everyone, perhaps it was my dad’s taxi driver background or maybe it was my love of cars in itself. In any case, I’ve always loved driving. So I knew I would not feel “settled” here (lol what is that) until I had my license. 

Phew! I had no idea what I was in for when I started driving school in 2017. 

The process to get your Italian driver’s license – or patente da guida – is pretty similar to the one in the US. Choose a driving school, study study study, take a written test, get your learners permit, practice practice practice, take the test and boom! You’ve got your license. 

Ha! If only it were that simple. I mean, the process is just that. The problem is that the written test is incredibly hard. Now, I am sure there are plenty of blogs out there telling you the exact details on what it entails to get this license. This is just my story as I remember it. 

First off, driving school is expensive. It can cost between €600 and €1,200. 

I asked around and had a friend introduce me to the autoscuola, in my neighborhood. Having her, a trusted local shop owner, vouch for me meant that the school allowed me to make payments over time. The last thing I was gonna do was allow cost to be the reason I didn’t get licensed. To me, the ability to drive means freedom. Being able to get in the car and go has always been therapeutic for me as it is for many others. So little by little I paid for the school. With enrollment I got the rule book, access to an online platform with practice quizzes, and access to in-person classes. 

Unfortunately, I’ve always hated studying things I find boring. And my Italian husband, who had taken his test almost 20 years earlier, was of little help. Not only had nearly two decades passed, but at some point in that time the test had completely changed. Each time I would ask for his help he’d be dumbfounded at how hard it was compared to when he took it. Plus the questions are framed specifically to trick you! He got so many answers wrong that I eventually started choosing the opposite of what he’d tell me and lo and behold I’d get it right! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that all the questions are true or false.

Eventually I just signed up for the test. In Italy, the “theory” test, as they call it, is taken at some remote location where the municipality administers it. The driving school usually rounds up a carful of students and drives you there. There are 40 questions and you can only miss three in order to pass. I missed FOUR. I was so frustrated! However, I felt a little better when the three 18-year-olds that had come with us to take the test had all failed, too. 

Anyway, that failure was what I needed to light a fire under my butt. I started taking the quizzes as many times as the app would allow – which I hadn’t done before, teehee! Also, the first time I had only studied the questions in Italian, even though the site had the option to translate. Since the test is strictly in Italian, I thought it would be best to study in the language I’d have to take it in. But since I had already failed it that way, I decided to turn on the translation this time around. But instead of focusing solely on the English translation, I used it to understand the Italian questions. I also made sure I understood the ways in which they try to trick you. 

I don’t remember if I felt ready or not to take the written test a second time, but I did know the enrollment for the school is not indefinite. If you take longer than 18 months to retake the test then you have to pay again. So I took the test again and passed! 
I got the coveted foglia rosa – or learners permit – and now it was time for the easy part. All those years driving and a few stick-shift lessons with my husband and I’d pass the driving test with flying colors. Or so I thought. Stay tuned for that blog drop soon!