Obtaining Drivers License

NWTMAN wrote:

i have heard nobody in Colombia fails a drivers test and that is why the traffic is a Mess....

Hello, NWTMAN.

What's your source for the concept that nobody flunks a drivers test in Colombia? 

An Expat in a bar?

cccmedia in Depto. de Nariño

nodody flunks a drivers test was a statment made by the the commander of the policia national a few years back look it it up on the internet  bad drivers in Colombia There is a article with statistics on how bad it is here More people have died in 50 years in auto deaths than the war for fifty years 9 a day with motos

Hello cccmedia how is it in the frontier town Ipeales  i have ventured there and Tulcan on my moto Wow what a Cathedral las Lajas and the graveyard in Tolcan is amazing but the weather sucks i was staying in Popayan and took a 3 day moto adventure to the border and it was great and did not know that equador deals in us green backs big disappointment for me i deal in can bucks

NWTMAN wrote:

Hello cccmedia how is it in the frontier town Ipeales  i have ventured there and Tulcan (Ecuador) on my moto... but the weather sucks.

Hello, NWTMAN.

I thought I was just passing through en route to Quito, Ecuador, last October when I got to Ipiales.

Exactly six months later, I'm still here.  I like it.

It's mid-autumn weather every day (I'm from Westchester County, NY) and I wear a jacket most of the time outdoors.  But it's not overly windy.  Many Expats prefer warm weather or Medellín's late spring/early summer warmth, but I like staying cool here at 9,500 feet elevation in the no-schvitz zone.

In this city there is less traffic than Medellín (where I stayed earlier on this trip).  Less pollution too.

The Ventura Casino is currently offering a blackjack promotion, the option of double-down-on-any-first-three-cards, and la jefa usually gives me a bunch of free chips to wager once a month.

Near my hospedaje is an indoor swimming pool available to the public on weekends .. with an adjacent jacuzzi.  There's an excellent massage therapist at Timaran peluquería.  I have been able to use my Ecuador-plated car, although the bus system is so good in the areas I mostly go to (El Centro and Gran Plaza mall neighborhoods) that I often use public transit.

Dr. Guerrero, who writes my meds prescription every month or two, has been gracious.  The folks at the hospedaje are extremely accommodating.

In fact, almost all the folks of Ipiales are friendly to Gringos, based on my sample of one.  In other words, as far as I can tell after six months, I'm the only Gringo in the city.  The exception to that statement about friendliness is the ladrón who stole my 4,000 pesos off a pharmacy counter in El Centro and ran away with the bills.  Fortunately, that was less than a dollar and a half US.

cccmedia in Ipiales, Nariño, two miles from the frontera ecuatoriana

hello again comedias haha i am living in a redneck town called Neiva and i hate it
it reminds me of rural Alberta petroleros it ha no appeal other than the starting point for San Augustine and tataquoa for tourists this place sucks and is hotter than hell 41.5 110f in the hottest days and bugs noseeums eat your ass, but is cheap

NWTMAN wrote:

i am living in a redneck town called Neiva and i hate it ...
this place sucks and is hotter than hell 41.5 (Celcius) 110f in the hottest days and bugs no-see-ums eat your ass, but is cheap.

Hello, NWTMAN.

I'm guessing there is a vaquerita involved .. or else you would have already put g*d-awful Neiva in the rear-view mirror of your moto.  There are lots of "cheap" places in La República where extreme heat and tiny bugs would not be spoiling your experience of life.

Maybe now you can appreciate the cool, crisp air at my elevation.

cccmedia in Ipiales, Nariño

Where do find these places? I am in Medellin and have a Valid Canadian DL
Please help

This matter, obtaining a Colombia drivers license, is a classic case for an arriving Expat with insufficient Spanish-language skills.. to hire a Gringo-helper from the location population.

Among

No gringo here

Well if you don't speak fluent Spanish, you are basically out of luck in Colombia. The government this year has made it nearly impossible for non Spanish speaking people to get a Colombian drivers license. You have to sit through 40 days of classes in Spanish from people with less experience than you and take an exam on the material that you probably did not understand. In a word, Colombia is making it impossible for outsiders to enter and enjoy the privileges of modern living. In a word, discriminatory. My suggestion would be Panama, they are very expat friendly.

Panama is expat friendly on the governmental and bureaucratic level, but no so much on the human level.......I will take Colombians and Ecuadorians any day over the typical Panamanian with some exceptions.........There is sooooo much more culture of service here in Colombia than Panama that its not even close........And Gas Fenosa rules the electrical dominion, as they do here on the Atlantic coast of Colombia too.....And they are equally bad in both places........Medellin is another company and way more organized and efficient.........And Panama City is crazy expensive and greedy and mercenary......The interior is better.........Nice thing about Panama is that it has a small population.......and its a pretty good size country, a bit bigger than Costa Rica..........and no peajes outside of the road to Tocumen airport.........driving is more American style....So that at least is nice.....and its not motorcycle madness.........the politics suck, but so do they almost every where...........

DBA56 wrote:

Well if you don't speak fluent Spanish, you are basically out of luck in Colombia. The government this year has made it nearly impossible for non Spanish speaking people to get a Colombian drivers license. You have to sit through 40 days of classes in Spanish from people with less experience than you and take an exam on the material that you probably did not understand.

Thanks for providing this information, DBA, and welcome to the Colombia forums of expat.com ...

Well, this is outrageous -- 40 days of drivers ed classes in Spanish, possibly a deal-breaker for potential driver-Expats considering a move to Colombia, even if they know all about the worldwide-income tax in La República.

To me, the outrage is not related to whether you can speak or understand Spanish.  It's being forced to sit through 40 days of classes to learn to drive after driving successfully for decades in the home country.  Even if you excel in conversational Spanish, the chore of sitting through so many classes led by a fast-talking Spanish speaker would be torturous.

This thread would welcome input from readers in the various cities to confirm or dispute whether the requirement of 40 days of drivers-ed classes in español .. is being uniformly required of Expats seeking a drivers license in various Colombia cities.  Poster DBA is in Cali, according to his expat.com bio information.

We would also like to know if folks have discovered a work-around to legally avoid such an onerous requirement.

cccmedia

DBA56 wrote:

In a word, Colombia is making it impossible for outsiders to enter and enjoy the privileges of modern living (driving a car)... discriminatory. My suggestion would be Panama, they are very expat friendly.

Another option is Ecuador, where I obtained a drivers license in 2016 without being required to attend any Spanish-language classes in order to drive.

I did a canje or exchange of my about-to-expire Pennsylvania drivers license.

Tests were required -- a computer-screen knowledge test, motor skills testing, blood test, hearing and eye exams -- and I had to buy a fancy hearing aid to pass the hearing test because I couldn't hear some dog whistles without it.

But no Spanish-language drivers-ed classes were mandatory.

-----

One advantage of Ecuador over Panama is the milder weather in the high-altitude Andes mountain range, which includes Quito, Cuenca and many smaller cities and towns.

In Panama, only a few places, notably Chiriquí province, offer an alternative to steamy lowlands weather.

----

Ecuador overall is still safer than Colombia, where I have spent most of the past three years.  However,  the long-term weakness of the Colombian peso versus the dollar has made the lower cost of living in Colombia preferable compared to Ecuador for dollarized Expats in that respect.

----

FYI, since I have a valid license that I can use (when on a visa or tourist stamp) in Colombia, I have not researched whether such a canje is possible to do in Colombia, possibly eliminating the español-classes requirement.  We would welcome readers' input on that if you have such information.

cccmedia

JLJ417 wrote:

dadomite wrote:

You can get a motorcycle licence,there is no test,they check hearing,eyes,and  a color and reaction test,real simple,but you have to have a cedula.

How do you get by without the test?

They call it "vacuna" (and sometimes "Palanca")

Thanks for your insight on Panama, but I have no problems with the Colombian people at all, at least how they treat foreigners. They tend to be very polite and laid back as a whole. My only criticism is with the crazy solutions they come up with for real social problems when they get into government. I cannot ever see Colombia becoming a Orwellian style police state as long as Colombians have control, so perhaps their bungling and lack of sophistication is a blessing in disguise.

I'm in the process of getting my license right now and just finished with the classes and exam. I took the classes at Academia Automovilismo, across the street from Parque Poblado, above the Doble Pizza. It cost 995.000 pesos for the B1 license. I had to provide my Cedula and document-sized photos to register in the class.

I wouldn't recommend the school if your Spanish is weak. The Spanish spoken by the teacher was a little too fast for me and the noise from the streets sometimes made it difficult to decipher what was being said. The school is run in a very relaxed 'Colombian' manner which may not be ideal for someone looking for something more professional.

The classes were only for 3 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and from 8 am to 5:30 pm. The written exam was on Friday. We were given plenty of break time including one break for 1 hour at 10am-11am and another break for lunch at 2pm-3:30pm. We had to register our fingerprints with a phone app when entering and exiting each class session. The class was mainly full of younger people. We watched several videos and even participated in a few group exercises.

The exam was 40 multiple choice questions and was done in the break room where they have 2 computers. The test was administered through a website and we were allowed to have notes and other material. It was all in Spanish and there were several tricky questions. You need to get above 90% to pass and you get 3 tries in total. I got 91% on my first try. If I had one more question wrong I would have to repeat it.

The teacher gave many hints as to what would be on the exam during the class sessions. The following two PDF's contained a lot of material on the exam:
http://ceabogota.com.co/Cursos%20Cea%20 … 0MEDIO.pdfhttp://www.ceabogota.com.co/Cursos%20Ce … 0legal.pdf

I now have my driving practice and medical exam left. I'm hoping they can can allow me to skip the driving practice since I already have many years of driving experience. Let's see how it goes. The medical exam is at a clinic in Estadio, kind of far from the school.

Thanks for telling us your experience, Louis.

Whereas DBA, apparently from Cali, wrote about 40 days of sitting in drivers ed class .. Louis got the training in three long days in Medellín.

Please let us know if the on-road driving practice and/or a road-driving test is required of you, Louis.

We welcome others' experiences in the hunt for a Colombia drivers license.

cccmedia

The death rate per person on Colombias roads is 7 to 8 times higher than in Canada and Europe. I spent a career in risk assessment and safety so I know what I speak of here. You gotta have a death wish if you have any desire to ride a motorcycle in Colombia for transportation. Take a bus for safety reasons.
It would seem to me that the sewing machine engine motorcycle operators have absolutely no idea what pain is. To me, they look like little 3 year olds with a new shiny toy. Anarchy and wheelies.
A car offers you some protection if you wear your seat belt and I have actually seen Colombianos with belts on. Kudos to them.
I avoid taxis.....the seat belts in the back are always buried because Colombianos never use them. Tradition. I always sit in the front of taxis because that belt always works BUT having spent a few years working on ambulance in Canada I know what the other passengers and drivers can do when flung around the inside in a crash.
My advice is to take a bus...... you will live longer.
I might get my drivers license for a car eventually. I will take an interpreter to the classes etc. with me. I will do my homework and find english friendly lessons and exams if possible.
In passing.... my observations on Colombian road safety is this. The male motorcycle drivers are wrecking the system for everybody. I understand that a motorcycle is what the average Colombian can afford but that is no excuse for total road anarchy. A little better organizing and enforcement by police would get everybody home quicker and safer.
Sorry, speed bumps are just lame and primitive. A poor and very dangerous excuse for lack of enforcement. All the speeding and suicide passes get nullified by the bumps. Net gain ........nothing.