A Flawed System.

On Wednesday we drove to the supermarket to pick up some milk, flour and coffee. This would not be a blogworthy happening, except we haven't been able to drive for the past four months!

Let me tell you the epic tale of the elusive Minnesota driver's license. I had to take two tests. The written and the road tests. I passed the written test the first time I took it. I somehow got an appointment for the road test two weeks later. I failed. Driving on the right side of the road was just too weird. I still hadn't adjusted in the 3 weeks since we had arrived. We were really wanted to get a car, so we could actually get around; we thought maybe we could just drive using our Australian licenses. Were we in for a shock. While Australian licenses are valid over here (so long as your visa is valid) getting insurance is a pain. There is no MAIB premium included in vehicle registration, and auto insurance is big business. You must have a minimum level of liability cover, which can make the premiums pretty high, but insurance agents offer discounts on your premium for all manner of things: being married, having a PhD, having a less-expensive car; but a foreign license has the opposite effect. We found a car and we were seriously considering buying, so we went to see an insurance agent. He gave us a quote of $200 per month. Not something we could really afford on a postdoc salary. So in mid-April I booked another road test. For May 31st. That was the earliest I could book it. It was such a long way off and life without a car in the Twin Cities is pretty is so annoying that I thought I should just try going without an appointment; people sometimes don't show up or cancel their appointments and I had heard that you can sometimes get in, if you get there early enough. Our friend Chet took me around 10 AM. But upon arrival Chet discovered he didn't have his proof of insurance in his car, so I couldn't take the test that day. The next week My boss's wife, Sue, kindly offered to take me around 9 AM. That wasn't early enough; the 'no-appointment' lane at the DVS was completely full. The next week Chet took me at 6:40 AM (the DVS doesn't open until 8 AM) and we were still 8th in line. We waited. And waited. By 11:30 AM only two of the no-appointment drivers had been tested. We gave up.

I ended up taking my test on May 31st and I passed! I got my temporary license and some of our friends from Church gave us their car (we changed the title over using my temporary license and a few other bits of paperwork). Then I tried to get insurance. After many hours on the internet, many emails and many phone calls, I discovered that it's not possible to get insurance using a temporary license. The insurance companies are very particular about having an actual license number, which was nowhere to be seen on my temporary license. So we waited a further three weeks and my license finally arrived on Tuesday and I bought auto insurance on Wednesday. Then we drove the the supermarket to celebrate.