The exam day

On the exam day, one motorcycle will be booked for you for basically the whole afternoon (my exam was in the afternoon, but I believe it should be similar if scheduled in the morning). You will be required to arrive about an hour in advance so you’ll have some more time for a final practice. Once the examiners arrive, here is how it will proceed.

At first, they will ask everyone to line up the same way as you were lining up when waiting for your turn to practice driving 8’s in the slope. The only different thing is they will arrange the order to their liking (I can’t remember if it was alphabetically or not). 2 or 3 examiners will observe you and make sure you do not commit any mistake while doing the “8’s in the slope” exercise. When you complete it (and hopefully pass) the examiners will ask you to go wait for the road trip. Those who fail the “8’s in the slope” will not be able to go.

Once everyone has gone through the “8’s in the slope” and the skimming has been done, the examiners will arrange the motorcycles by category. Usually 650cc are positioned directly behind the examiner who takes the lead, then come the 125cc and the 50cc in the end. While driving, you have to stay RIGHT BEHIND the lead examiner in a straight line. If you deviate either on the right or the left a bit too much to his liking, he will FAIL you. If you overtake him or another student, he will FAIL you. I know the left or right bit seems a bit stupid, why would I want to stay right behind him, what’s the problem in being in his wing a bit? I’ve asked the driving school guy but he just gave me the typical Macau answer: “Those are the rules made by IACM, I don’t make the rules, I just tell you how it is and don’t know the reason, I’m just teaching you how to get your license, once you pass you can do whatever you want on the road…” you get the idea… One last thing, if you can’t keep up and the lead examiner gets too much ahead of you, he will FAIL you too.

Anyway, once you start driving around there should not be any problem as you already know the route, just remember the following:

1. When stopped, always put your LEFT (and left only) foot on the ground.
2. Always keep your RIGHT foot on the brakes.
3. Always signal when turning or stopping along the road.
4. Never stop your motorcycle on a zebra crossing.
5. Watch out for pedestrians.

The first 3 points are quite obvious but let me develop a bit on 4 & 5. As I mentioned earlier, the examiners will arrange the motorcycles by category, which means there will be a fairly long line of motorcycles behind him, meaning you will have to anticipate when stopping. For example, if you’re 20 meters behind the lead examiner and he decides to stop 20 meters after a zebra crossing, that would make you stop right on top of it if you keep the same distance. You have to anticipate this and stop right before it, that’s all. Same thing goes for pedestrians, you have to stop even they’re not crossing the street yet… If they’re just waiting on the sidewalk or getting closer to crossing the street, you have stop and let them go first.

If you understand and execute all this well, you will be holding a brand new Macau driving license at the end of the day. If it was a bad day and you didn’t pass, well no worries, you still can re-take the exam some other time. Be aware that failure has a price though, as it will cost you an extra MOP2,280 to re-apply for the exam (price including 5 extra lessons).