New Drivers License

Texas requires a different license if an RV weighs 26,001 lbs or more.  It’s a class B license if anything you tow is 10,000 lbs. or less.  Class A if the tow is > 10,000 lbs.  The only thing we plan on towing is a car, so it will be well under the weight limit. My guess is that many, if not most, people in Texas who drive larger RVs don’t get this license and could care less (unless you’re in an accident or get stopped for something else).  I can show one place on the Texas DPS web site that categorically says you only need a standard drivers license to drive an RV. Wonder if the judge would accept that as a defense?  You have to look a bit to find out about this license.

And the amount of actual written information available from the state is quite small.  They really only have a manual for the full commercial drivers license, and about 90% of it isn’t going to be on any test you have to pass.  There is some other good information there, but it’s not what you’d call entertaining reading.

All of this is important because we are upgrading our RV in anticipation of being in it full time. So, in order to be fully legal, one of us needs to upgrade our license.  I plowed around through a bunch of on line information, some of it was even accurate, too.  I went today to take the test at my local DPS drivers license station.  It was a very time wasting experience.  Took an hour and 45 minutes to take a 3 minute, 20 question test. (By the way, the computer said I had 468 minutes to take this particular 20 question test.)

You just have to be patient when dealing with any thing like a state agency.  They are really nice, caring people for the most part, but they also don’t have much incentive to be productive.  Oh well.  I got a passing grade so now I have 90 days to take the driving test.  We should get the new motorhome next week and I should be able to work the test in shortly after that.

Pretty much all the posts I read were right on about how crazy this is.  Why do I need to know that vehicles built before 1960 didn’t have to have turn signals?  But that was one of the questions.  I also ran into people that didn’t have any idea what to do with my application.  It took several conferences for them to decide what I had to do.  At least I didn’t get multiple answers and conflicting directions, and it was only an hour and 45 minutes.

Somewhere in Texas

April 29, 2014