Air Force puts a mandatory German driving test onlineBy Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, February 24, 2009
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Question: At an unmarked traffic circle in Germany, do you yield to the wagon entering from the right?
Answer: It depends on what’s pulling that wagon. If it’s an animal, it gets to go first; a human-drawn wagon, on the other hand, must yield.
This is no joke, just one of the many rules of the road for driving in Germany.
Learning those sometimes befuddling rules is one of the first orders of business for servicemembers moving to Germany, often even before the jet lag wears off or bags are unpacked. They have to pass a U.S. Army in Europe driver’s license test to legally drive — a not so easy task considering the failure rate among first-time takers hovers between 35 and 40 percent, according to Air Force and Army officials.
That failure rate places undue stress on airmen and their families while also taxing sponsors who have to take time off from work to shuttle unlicensed drivers around.
Rest of article at:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60931