Non French Teenagers Taking Driving Test In France

[timc17]

Has anyone been through the experience of their children taking driving lessons/test in France?

We are having problems obtaining a provisional licence for our 16 year old daughter to start lessons as she needs a form signed by the marie to prove her age, residency and eligibility for National Service. Because she is British she cannot do National Service and the marie will not sign the form and our local driving instuctor will not give her lessons.

Help!!

[Sunday Driver]

The requirement to certify residence and eligibility for national service only applies to French nationals aged between 16 and 25 years of age.

The procedure for applying to the préfecture for a form 02 demande de permis de conduire and a livret d'apprentissage are set out [url=http://www.deux-sevres.pref.gouv.fr/spl79.asp?spl_c=546554&spl_f=N21/N368/N370/F2824&spl_l=105&iS=38&iR=8]HERE[/url].  Your  daughter can apply in person, but it is normal for the driving school to organise this on her behalf.

I expect your local driving instructor has only ever dealt with French pupils, so I'd print off the préfecture web page and show it to him.  No need to involve the mairie.

 

 

[SC]

As SD says, it is normal for the driving school to organise the dossier for the application to the prefecture. If the school isn't helpful go to another who is.

Our daughter enrolled in 2005 and partly from memory and partly from the driving school documents that I have in front of me, the steps were as follows:

For a conduite accompagnee course (as it must be if your daughter is 16) she must have an ASSR level 2 (attestation scolaire de sécurité routière) that she would normally have obtained at college.

Completed application form

A photocopy of her passport.

4 identity photos

A photocopy of the driving license of one of the parents

When your daughter enrols, the driving school will give you a Demand d'Extension de Guarantee d'Assurance pour l'Apprentissage Anticipé de la Conduite, which you take to your motor insurance company who will give you a certificate to return to the driving school.

A cheque for roughly half the overall cost.

These documents form part of your dossier that will be submitted to the prefecture. As she is not French, the proof of national service is not required. In our case the driving school phoned the Service Armées at Brest (02 98 37 78 57) to check.

Your daughter can attend the driving school code sessions until considered ready to sit the code test.

At the same time (although I seem to remember it being dependant on attending several hours of code sessions) your daughter will have 20 hours of driving lessons with an instructor. If she has passed her code (45€ per test) and if she is considered competant by the instructor, he will give her all the documents so that she can drive accompanied by you, a minimum of 3000KM (recorded by you), in a minimum of one year, although as she is 16 and can't take her driving test until she is 18 this probably won't be an issue. Half way through the conduite accompagnee period she will (must?) go out with the instructor again who will establish her weaknesses for you to concentrate on. A week or so before the driving test she will have more prep lessons with the instructor.

I think I have got it all right, I'm being dragged off to dinner!

Good luck to her,

Steve

[timc17]

Thanks to SD and SC for the info.

Tim

[AnOther]

Jeeze what a pularva, has it been thus for a long time ?

Another stark contrast with UK where anyone 17 years or older with a provisional licence and theory test pass (not exactly mastermind!) can turn up for a test without having sat a single formal lesson.

One can but hope that it produces better safer drivers.

Q: Is it a requirement that one must never fall further than 1.5m behind the car in front, always take the "racing line" through blind bends and only overtake on the brow of a hill with a solid white line [6]

Good luck [:D]