I am renewing my driver's license, it's a 3-year deal. But two years ago Mexico introduced a new grade of license so that a strictly auto license would not cover bikes, the A2. If I want to keep riding (legally), that's what I need.
But it requires an exam administered by just a handful of schools here in Mexico City. Studied up for maybe an hour, and reproted for the exam. Got 24 out of 24, not bad considering it was in Spanish and there was some new vocab for me (escape is exhaust, in case you were wondering). The young woman was nice, and I did my riding next, acing everything but... hitting a cone on the slalom with my shoe. Automatic fail and retake. I was swearing under my breath, but I could retake it right away. This time, however, the nice young woman was replaced by the surly ex-racer. He didn't like me for not being a native Spanish speaker and he made it pretty clear (this is something that is super rare down here). He put me through my paces, telling me to go faster through a few (I was, I assure you, going higher than the lower requried speed and he had no way to check my speed at all, so he was just being an a55). Still, I sped up to what I determined was borderline dangerous and was not going to do it again if he asked me to go faster, but that was OK by him. Emergency stop OK, slalom OK, he couldn't fail me. They even make you park your bike in a bike parking spot. But then he told me I was going to take a computer-administered written exam. "How's your Spanish?" he sneered. Young woman to the rescue, she told him I already passed, and that I could leave. He was fuming. I go to pick up my certificate and renew my license Monday.
The problem is that all of the schools that administer the exam are private. It's not like there is no gov't corruption, but with subjective criteria ("that wasn't fast enough") I imagine they will flunk a large number of the people who take the exam, and force them to retake and pay again (I paid just a fraction for the second riding exam, about $15, after paying about $25 for the first). No oversight, and the guy's gonna make money hand-over-fist because he can. I got lucky that the damsel saved the dude in distress.
My first moto test was in Seattle in 1990 (I'd been riding for a few years, finally got pulled over and got a ticket which made me take the exam to get the ticket thrown out). Gov't administered and transparent, and I've kept my endorsement up to date ever since (including transferring to AZ and MA).
