My partner and I got our provisional driver's license in October of last year. We live in Bavaro and intended on getting the provisional in La Romana but the computers were down so we ended up going into Santo Domingo. Our spanish skills are rudimentary so we opted to use a driving school that provided a translator. It certainly made the process easier since getting the license requires going into about a dozen different queues, watching a video, getting a blood test, etc. It's a classic case of intended organization resulting in chaos. Contrary to things I had heard, they were VERY strict about having the translator in the examination room. They monitored his translations and made sure he wasn't giving us the answers. (Not that the test is difficult).
Fast forward to yesterday. We drove to La Romana first thing in the morning to do the driving test and get our permanent license. We enlisted the services of a local friend just in case we had trouble communicating. We were in and out in about 30 minutes. It was very easy. They refused to let our friend join us in the car for the driving test. Not that it mattered. All you have to do is drive around the block. Four right turns and you are done. It was pointless really. The man administering the test was attempting to speak to me in English (which I thought was nice of him) but he had his left and right mixed up so he kept pointing to the right and telling me to turn left.
All in all, a very positive experience and glad it's finally done. I like having everything legal. I realize some of our longer term residents are hostile to the whole idea of formally getting their residency/cedula/license but I think it's a worthwhile venture.
While we were in La Romana we were going to get our new cedulas but the lines were out the door and down the street. Decided it wasn't worth the wait.
Fast forward to yesterday. We drove to La Romana first thing in the morning to do the driving test and get our permanent license. We enlisted the services of a local friend just in case we had trouble communicating. We were in and out in about 30 minutes. It was very easy. They refused to let our friend join us in the car for the driving test. Not that it mattered. All you have to do is drive around the block. Four right turns and you are done. It was pointless really. The man administering the test was attempting to speak to me in English (which I thought was nice of him) but he had his left and right mixed up so he kept pointing to the right and telling me to turn left.
All in all, a very positive experience and glad it's finally done. I like having everything legal. I realize some of our longer term residents are hostile to the whole idea of formally getting their residency/cedula/license but I think it's a worthwhile venture.
While we were in La Romana we were going to get our new cedulas but the lines were out the door and down the street. Decided it wasn't worth the wait.