German Chancellor admits to buying license
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted that she was a bad driver who resorted to a fairly common indiscretion while trying to earn her driver's license. She says she paid her driving instructor a little something extra to speed up the process a bit.
Chancellor Merkel confessed to this in a recent article in Bild am Sonntag newspaper. She said that when she was 26 years old and a student driver in East Germany, she was repeating some lessons two to three times as often as other students. That meant she had to delay taking her driving test, unless she could find another way to expedite the process.
She says she ended up "tipping" her tutor to speed things up. A friend clued her in to the fact that offering her instructor "tips" would get her to her goal much more quickly. And it worked. "I got my license after that right away," Merkel said.
Apparently this was a pretty common practice in many communist countries before the fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification in 1990. This is sort of like admitting you inhaled. We applaud her candor and hope her driving has improved.
[Source: Reuters]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Greg 1:16PM (11/15/2006)
Well the good thing for now is that I am sure German Chancellor Angela Merkel is driven around by a chauffer.
And even better.. I am sure after her term as Chancellor she will still have a chauffer.
It will probably be some time, if ever, she is behind the wheel of an automobile again.
Buying Drivers licenses are common all around the world, and was a common process here in the USA up until 9/11.
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Ken 1:23PM (11/15/2006)
Take just one drive tot he store in any US city and you'll swear that happens all of the time. I think the Democrats should start an investigation of all the Drivers Ed instructors in this country and check their personal finance records against their W2 forms. The way half of the drivers in this country drive there has to be bribes going on. I bet Ted Kennedy paid off his Drivers Ed intructor right before he took Mary Jo for a swim.......
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gwballin 1:50PM (11/15/2006)
Ken,
What state do you live in that a driver's ed instructor has any say so at all in who gets a driver's license?
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Dr. Woo 1:58PM (11/15/2006)
Oh no! Scandal rocks the German government!
If this is the biggest negative to come out of Merkel's Chancellorship, then bravo. I really like her. Besides, it was East Germany. That country doesn't even exist anymore.
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DCWF 2:29PM (11/15/2006)
But, did she inhale?
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gary 2:47PM (11/15/2006)
It makes you wonder how much of this "tipping' practice carried over after the reunification of Germany?
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matt 3:17PM (11/15/2006)
Both of my parents back in the 70's took the driving test for one of their siblings. Not unusual in canada at the time. No big deal.
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whofan 3:40PM (11/15/2006)
In Germany you actually have to learn how to drive and know the rules of the road.
Drivers training here is a joke. Over half of the licensed driver`s here in the US would fail the German drivers test.
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Paul V 3:51PM (11/15/2006)
#8, you’re correct, not only do the Germans learn how to drive they also learn how to spell.
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anahit 6:40PM (11/15/2006)
In Soviet Russia, instructor drive YOU!
-Yakov Smirnoff
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Keith 11:08PM (11/15/2006)
8 - I bet 9/10 drivers would fail, no question.
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The story - so what, admitting to stuff like that shows you are human.
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Haentz 6:01AM (11/16/2006)
And she said, that as private persons her and her husband drive a VW Golf :) Weird...
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Richard Warren 7:59AM (11/16/2006)
Instructor: You vill pass de test! We have ways!
Student: Yes Mein driving Fuhrer!
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maxim 2:17PM (11/16/2006)
In former USSR my father paid the instructor for my mother license. When my mother did the actually test as a formality she came up on a parked garbage truck and stopped behind it. She got out of the car and told the instructor to pass the truck and that she would only continue to drive after that as she was scared. He did ... and she drove on to get her license =). Oh ... and there were three other people in the car waiting to take their test. Money talks! lol
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