For San Francisco/Peninsula DMV locations, the drive test is reasonably challenging and involves signal use, merging, making unprotected turns, backing, and com

For San Francisco/Peninsula DMV locations, the drive test is reasonably challenging and involves signal use, merging, making unprotected turns, backing, and complex intersections. I failed it twice with my parent's car and resumed my attempt to pass a few years later, this time paying for lessons. Like every other merit-oriented institution, there's an industry around gaming this system. Besides having valuable information about test details, the driving schools get to jump ahead of the line and get earlier test dates and plusher time slots, and take their lesson fee on top of the test fee. The message is pretty clear: Fork up the cash to go through a school if you want to get your license in a timely fashion. The schools themselves vary from utter crap to the guy that I went with(Mr. Yu), who has done it part time for over 20 years and has perfect knowledge of all three of the designated routes the Daly City examiners use, tips for each intersection, tips for some specific examiners(!), and a pleasant and persistent attitude. Mr. Yu is popular enough to be booked solid for a month in advance, but apart from that there's hardly any wasted time - I am paying about $700 for three sessions of two hours(that time including pickup and dropoff, all of which I drove on my own) and the test itself, which I'm taking in September.