Obtaining driver's license

A local doctors office will do the eye exam and will need to determine your blood type if you don't know it. It is a simple step, in a complicated process. Depending on your need or lack thereof to take the written exam - I am somewhat skeptical that the process can be successfully completed in one month.

If you're only going to be on STX for one month - why are you even worrying about getting a drivers license? If you're returning to the States after your 1 month visit - you'll only have to get a stateside license again.

Ex-Island Paul who has many stores to tell about getting one's drivers license.

It's a bit more complex than that, we don't live in the states anymore, our legal residence is actually STX. We purchased last year after selling our home in VA.

Well, we moved our car out of the country and cancelled unnecessary insurance (it is insured where we live and during the transport) so the state of VA decided that if you don't have insurance, then they will cancel the license. We have a VA mailing address but they say that's not good enough. Only my husband's license is cancelled and mine is still intact (we discovered this when renting a car).

We do have a foreign license but since it's not in English no one can actually read it. So, ideally we can get a license when we're in STX, if not there's nothing we can do about it. I just thought if we brought all the right documents with us it would expedidite the process......or at least as much as the process can be documented on island time.

Thanks for listening to my boring story.
Sharon

Going to the DMV certainly tops the list of horror stories in our office.
There will be a wait for the written exam to be scheduled, then the test is so bizarre that even experienced drivers do not always pass first time - lol! the handbook is 'transliterated' from the Puerto Rican handbook and the english is quite entertaining. The test is also a little er, confusing so...
...and then after all the hoops have been jumped through, you sometimes have to wait for the camera to be working, the plastic laminator to be working etc etc
1) be there in line before 7am ( at least on St X.)
2) be ultra respectful and polite no matter what!
3) Have the exact change at all times
4) Have nowhere else to be for the rest of the day
5) be prepared for multiple trips
The upside is that I have made some lifelong friends during the long waits.
there is a rumor that someone conceived and gave birth in line during one of our better snarl ups!

Besides the eye test, you also need to have your blood type. If you do not have a valid stateside license, you will have to take the road test along with the written test. You need an appointment to take all the various tests, most people fail the road test at least once-I am not sure that you can get a license in one month. I am amazed you got someone to answer the phone!

Did I have a dream, or did I see that the Driver's Manual in available on-line somewhere?

For Driver's License Manual go to:
http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/VIRGIN_ISLANDS_DRIVERS_MANUAL.pdf

So it wasn't a dream! Thanks, Donna.

Great information, I'll check out the manual before arriving. Do they take your word for it about your blood type or do you need a document? That's probably one thing we could get done here. I know my blood type from the old college A & P but doubt my husband has an idea.

When we got our license in Egypt, we just arrived early and sat for a couple of hours. The "gopher" from my husband's work ran around to different windows completing forms and whatever. He had actually completed our forms for us before we arrived.........including our physicals. I was glad to discover that I am in perfect health. A little backsheesh and we didn't even have to take the driving test. Two hours later we had our pictures done and we walked out with a license. Quite an experience.

Patience, patience, patience.........no plan on conceiving a child during the wait but we should probably pack a lunch and wear comfortable clothes.

Thanks all,
Sharon

You also need a have to show them a social security card. Not just know your number

I don't know how much the driver's manual has changed over the years but this is my story from over 20 years ago when, although I had a valid Stateside license, I dutifully asked DMV to borrow their manual so I could prepare for the test.

I pored over the manual and absorbed every detail. There was a test question about what you should do when approaching a railroad crossing. I was pretty sure there were no railroads in the Virgin Islands so rather skipped over that one, but I did have a problem with the test question about what one should do if one hits a pedestrian. The correct answer, according to the manual, was that one should put the injured person in one's car and take him or her to the hospital.

So I went for the test and sat down with about twenty other people to put my mark in the correct spot on the multiple choice questionnaire. I passed the test, was given an OK and went to leave. A big burly policeman was standing at the exit and, as I went to leave, he barked at me, "THE BOOK!"

Oops, in the sheer exhilaration of actually having passed the written test on the first go-around (which I knew wasn't the norm) I'd forgotten that I had to return the manual, apologized and handed it over to him. But, simply curious, I asked him about that particular test question whose correct answer was to transport an injured person to the hospital in your car. He seemed confused and I opened up the page where the question was posted and since he seemed a bit confused about reading it, I read it to him.

"So, what's the problem with that?" he asked in a very disgruntled tone of voice.

"Well, the thing is," I said, "If you're driving a vehicle which strikes and injures a pedestrian, the first thing you have to do is call the emergency services and of course you should never try to move an injured person under any circumstances because you could kill them in the process and then you could be sued bigtime so I was just asking because this "right" answer is totally wrong - and, well, I was just asking..." I ended up very lamely because the officer was towering over me and balefully glaring at me.

He thought about it for a moment and then said:

"THAT QUESTION WAS ON THE SHEET FROM WHICH YOU JUST TOOK THE TEST AND PASS?"

"Well, actually no, it wasn't."

"SO WHAT YOUR PROBLEM?"

I humbly thanked him and quickly exited.

Just an old island story which I thought you might enjoy...

The receptionist at Pearle Vision completed my entire medical form--without asking me any questions, other than the vision test. Somehow she knew about my cardiac health and my mental health too, all for the $35.00 vision testing fee.

Can I get the Physical Form used there in the VI,or can I use whatever form my physicial uses here in the states??I'd appreciate the info.LA

You will need to have the LOCAL form. Local government, local forms!

would like to get a vi licence for st, john where i live 6 months Larry

Do people have difficulty with the road test and written test because of the driving on the left hand side (we have 20 plus years experience of that) or is it just because the rules are so different, are they based more on UK and Europe rules or more on Spanish rules or US rules???? As to the wait in line and all of that, spend some time at the Cayman Islans Immigration Board, in fact we refer to it as doing time as opposed to spending time, it can take days, literally days to get to the head of the line only to be told there is something wrong with your documents (like the wrong colored paperclip or something!) the DMV is the same way, just when you get to the front of the line they will close the windows and make you return when they feel like opening them up again which has nothing to do with lunch times or break times or anything else!

I just wanted to post a tale since I just got my VI license and it was a cake walk. If you get the form from the public safety office (everyone is right, the eye doctor just checks the whole physical off. For me it cost $15 to do so, I'm not sure why.) Then you go to the cashier and pay for the form. You have to submit 2 passport photos (mine were color copies on photo paper and they didn't notice) and your stateside license. You pay $57 to submit you stateside license and waive the written test and road test. Then you go back up to public safety and get your picture taken and you have your license right away.

Hope that helps someone.

vshoppell - good info and great that it was so easy for you! Judging from what I hear, it's all dependent on who's on duty at the DMV when you go down there - same applies to most government-run entities here! Judging from your experience in that you didn't even have to take the written test, I guess they've changed the rules over the years (although sentence two probably still applies,,it all seems to be very arbitrary..)

Cindy - if you have a valid driver's license from somewhere else you generally aren't required to take the driving test and, judging from vshoppell's experience you may not even have to take the written test. Your experiences in general in the Caymans will indubitably prepare you very well for life in the Virgin Islands.

Driving here does tend to take a bit of getting used to because driving is on the left but the cars are US with left-hand drive. I don't know if cars in the Caymans are predominantly left or right hand drive.

One of the problems I have here (bothered me less when I was younger but bothers me more now as I rapidly approach senior citizen status) is that the headlights are beamed with a stateside right slant. Driving on St. Thomas's volcanic terrain with steep winding hills, this means that approaching car headlights come directly at you and blind you.

Combined with the fact that too many drivers at night keep on their high beams at all times, it's often a bit intimidating, especially when you're trying to be cautious and there's not only traffic coming towards you with high beams dazzling you but some a-hole behind you with high beams right on your rear end getting antsy because you're apparently not moving fast enough. In instances like this, I've often just pulled over to the side when I can to allow the a-hole to overtake me. They inevitably rev up like crazy, scream their tires, overtake me - and then I'm right behind them at the next intersection a half mile further up the road.

Go figure. I have an expression for these morons which relates their driving habits, accompanied by their loud exhaust systems and the incredible volume coming from their over-sized speaker systems which make any vehicle or household in their vicinity literally shake, to the size of their particular personal appendages.

I think I said that nicely enough that Islander won't throw me off the board!

Cheers!

STT Resident, you just gave me a much needed laugh today! I couldn't have described these morons any better!!!!!!! What's the deal anyway with a. the exhaust from these cars (doesn't the DMV check cars anymore?!) and the b. oversized speaker systems which have proliferated exponentially these last couple of years?!

Thanks for a great posting!

Hello Cindy,

The difficulties with the road and written have nothing to do with driving on the left side or the rules being very different, in my opinion. STT Resident's story about the 'correct' answer according the driver's manual and the real Correct Answer for the question related to what you should do if you hit a pedestrian is an example of why the written test can be... not necessarily difficult but confusing.

The road test. Parking is the first part, or was when I took it. If you hit or come to close to the cones or reverse and drive forward to many times to straighten out you fail and that is the end of the test. I've had a few friends fail at this point. While taking the test I was told to speed up because I was driving to slow; well I happen to be in a school zone so would have failed had I sped up. Had a friend that was told to go down a one way road, she did and failed - the sign was covered by vines but the test giver said she should have known it was there. Another friend didn't adjust the mirrors, seat etc. when starting out and was told this in addition to some other minor thing caused them to fail. Explanation being the test taker is suppose to be driven to the test by a licensed driver so the mirrors and seat would have been adjusted for them so needed to be checked by the test taker prior to starting off. (The explanation that the test taker had driven themselves there since they have a drivers permit and the licensed driver was the passenger was responded to with something along the lines of 'you can sign up for another test inside, you fail'.) So its not a matter of the road rules being difficult but rather you need to drive to a T; adjust mirrors, use hand signals, use indicators, make sure the test giver isn't instructing you to do something that is actually illegal, observe speed limits, etc. Not much room for error on any particular part.

🙂

--Islander