Officially you have 10 days to get your California driver's license. Which is another catch 22, because to get your license you need your SSN (Social Security Number), and it takes 14 days for your SSN to come in the mail. The reality is, what the government doesn't know, won't hurt you. I know people who have been using their Ontario license for 3 years now.

I don't recommend that because your Canadian insurance is very unlikely to cover you for more than 30 days in the U.S, and American insurance companies prefer an American driver's license (preferably one from the state you're in). It's in your benefit to get an American driver's license if you want to have the best opportunity at getting the lowest car insurance. The only reason I'd say to hold off, is that if you get a traffic infraction it'll affect your insurance for that license, so after that happens you get a U.S driver's license which has no points taken off, and get new insurance for your U.S license.

Another catch 22, and this is a tricky one, is getting your driver's license when you don't have car. Because you have to show proof of insurance on the car you do the test on. And to buy a car to do the test on, you need to have insurance on it, but you unlikely will be able to get insurance without an American driver's license (that you're trying to get in the first place!).

This is a strong reason to bring your car down from Canada. You're legal to drive it, you have valid Canadian insurance on it for awhile, and it's legally registered somewhere. So you won't have any problems getting your American license. Some of the larger insurance companies (like Prudential, Zurich, and State Farm) that have presence in Canada will give you insurance with your Canadian license if you tell them you'll get your American license. I found Prudential to be quite helpful.

BIG THING TO NOTE: In Canada you typically have liability insurance that covers you for a million dollars. Here you'll be looking at $15000 for the Statement minimum per person and $30 000 per accident.

We found a car insurance agent, Karen Isaacs of Diablo Insurance (karendia@aol.com, 925-838-4080) , who can hook you with insurance that recognizes your Canadian history. In Canada when you turn 25 your insurance drops, judging by age is discriminatory in the United States so your insurance goes down after you have 9 years of experience. So, before you come down make sure to bring proof of insurance which can be in the form of your old policy agreements, or (what I did) ask your broker or insurer to write you a letter stating your insurance record.

From the Move From Canada to Cali FAQ: "At least three of us deal with a broker, Andrews Insurance. Our broker there is Cathy Eckert at (408) 241-4371 - my experience with her has been excellent. She chose Mercury Insurance as my insurance company. To verify my insurance amount, I called Consumer Reports to get a quote of the 20 lowest insurance costs. This cost USD $12. Call (800) 807-8050 for more details."

Can My Spouse Drive? Another big problem was that the DMV required a SSN to get a license. Someone sued the DMV (again) over this and won. If you are not qualified to receive a SSN you can still get a drivers license. Go down to the Social Security office and ask for a letter explaining to the DMV that you (or whoever) doesn't qualify for a SSN. Social Security has these letters already pre-printed and all they have to do is check to see if the person is on a dependent VISA (eg H4, TN4) and they write the persons name on the letter and stamp it. Don't forget the passport!

Another work around for getting your license is to rent a car, and get insurance on it (from the rental agency). I'm not sure if it's possible, don't know anyone who has done it this way, but I can't see why not. Also I heard you can just borrow friend's car, as long as its insured. They just want to see some kind of paper about insurance.

When initially insuring your car, your insurance company may ask you to get it checked out at a Check Point station, which is the same thing they have up in Canada. They'll provide you a list of locations near your area, all you do is bring it in and they just check off details about your car including taking pictures.

Getting That License

Do you have to take the written test if you already have a license? Yes. Do you have to take the driving test if you already have a license? If you have a license from another state, no. From another country, yes.

The written test is very similar to the one in Canada. A bunch of multiple choice questions. It's fairly easy, but when reviewing the book I assumed that most of the questions would be related to the road rules. But there are a fair amount of questions regarding impaired driving, what you have to do if you hit a car with no one in it, a regular accident and the damage is under a certain amount, damage over a certain amount, and what form you need to fill out if transferring the title to someone else. Most people go to the Sunnyvale DMV located at:

595 Showers Drive (next to JC Penny's)
1 block east of El Camino and 1 block south of San Antonio
415-968-0610

    Checklist
  • Social Security Number
  • $12 processing fee for the written test
  • Proof of your date of birth
  • Proof of insurance if you're taking the driver's test

There's a $12 processing fee, and they also take a vision test. The strange thing though, is the test area is just this stand up shelf, and you can totally talk to the person beside you. In fact you could walk right out of the building, write the test with the help of the book and walk back in and give it to them. You have 3 chances to write this test, after that, I'm not sure what happens. I think you have to wait awhile before you can try again. You must score 80% on the test or higher.

You need to make an appointment for the road test. It's fairly easy, there's no highway driving and it lasts about 15 minutes. The DMV person will look over your car, check your car insurance, and ask you to start the car. Before you're out of the gate, they'll ask you to show them the hand signals (for left, right, and stop).

Before taking the road test, I suggest driving around the local area for a bit and check the speed limits. That's one thing that I find confusing is sometimes it's hard to tell if an area is 25mph, 35mph, 40mph, or 45mph. In Canada speeds limits are posted everywhere, here you're supposed to just know what speed limit applies to a certain area. So in some cases I was going too fast, and other's going too slow. I also was asked to take a left, and to make it smooth I did the typical thing of cutting into a little bit of the oncoming lane of the adjacent road:

If your wheel touches yellow, they consider the action the same as hitting a cement barrier. So I lost major points on that. They'll ask for a parallel park, and possibly a three point turn. Overall it wasn't too bad, scored 89% (pass is 80%).