Getting a Driver’s License

Look at the background of this picture and you can see what the cars looked like at the time Dad got his first driver's license.

While I still lived at home, Dad tried to teach me how to drive a car, so that I could get a driver’s license. I didn’t do well at all. I remember he took me to the Oakland hills and had me stop at the top of a hill. The cars when I was a teenager were stick shift cars. Every time I tried to get the car to go forward up the hill, I ended up going backwards instead. I never did get up that hill. I ended up at the bottom of the hill. I’m sure it was very stressful trying to teach me to drive. I never have enjoyed driving. It’s always been too stressful for me.
I didn’t get my driver’s license at that time in my life. It was years later when I was married. I was no longer living in Alameda and there were no hills to drive on.
In his life's memory book, Dad tells when he first got his driver’s license. How things have changed since that time. If you remember in the wedding story, he was stopped by a policeman for honking the car horn on his wedding night. Well, it seems he didn’t have a driver’s license at that time. I guess it wasn’t something that the police routinely checked for when a person was pulled over. Here is Dad’s driver’s license story.

One day, soon after I was married, I decided to go get a driver’s license. I had been driving all this time without a license. I went and filled out my application. The man who took my application noticed that I was only eighteen and he told me that I needed to have my parent’s signature to get a license. I asked him if my wife could sign for me instead. He looked at me and said, “Are you married?” I assured him that I was. “Well”, he said. “If you're old enough to be married, you’re old enough to have a driver’s license.” He gave me a driver’s license.

Now, my question is, "Was that it?" No parental signature was required of Dad, even though that was the law. And was there any written test or driving test to take at that time?
Posted by Judy