Anyone familiar with the road test at Spring-Cypress DPS Mega Center?

[treaschwig]

***NOTE: Make online appointment about a month ahead. Fairly easy process and saves time when you physically go to DPS.

****BEFORE DAY OF APPOINTMENT*****

Practice time: 30 minutes (2 15-min sessions)
First practice: Day time: Drive around the DPS office and neighborhood area (Spring-Cypress & StoneForest), focus on STOP signs, paint markers, potholes, etc.

Second Practice: Late night, after DPS office is closed...no one is around. Use the actual location for parallel parking (towards north-east side of the building, next to Mexican restaurant). "No one is around"-> not true. There were 2 who were already practicing and 2 more waiting for their turn to practice -- at 10pm. In SPRING MEGA center, there are 2 spots for parallel parking. Although the drive-way has no-markers, it is used as a one-way street i.e. you enter the parking spot from north-east-corner (of course, parking spot must be on your right side). One parent felt that the first parking spot is 'tad more' difficult. Tried both spots --> they looked and behaved exact same (don't think DPS will have 2 spots that are somehow different). Did not measure the dimensions of the parallel parking, but may be around 23-25 feet. The yellow-marker-poles are in the center of front-boundary and back-boundary.

****ON DAY OF APPOINTMENT****
Appt time: 11am
Arrive on location: 10am (they ask you to come 1 hour ahead)
Leave location: 12pm
Total time: 2 hour


Inside DPS office --> extremely well maintained facility, courteous resources. If you are used to 'self-help' (i.e. easy to understand intuitive systems that you figure out by yourself), yeah, this place somehow didn't feel like that. But they provide ample manual assistance - Just ASK. They know their stuff. It had around 150-200 customers at any given time.

The paperwork clearly stated each person needs proof of citizenship (or GC), proof of living in Texas, SSN. But upon checking-in at the desk, they did not even ask for any. They were only interested in the main application and supplemental info. May be they already had my ID documents in file (submitted earlier??).

Here is the overall process
1. Enter the building and be-greeted. Be directed to counter-5 (for those who had previously made appointment)
2. Wait in line (5-8 mins)
3. Submit paper work, clarify questions, then told to be seated (they will text you when ready)
4. Within a minute, Got text that wait is 1 hour (was told to ignore it as it would be followed by another text)
5. After 5 min, Got another text to go to a specific counter.
6. At the counter, showed documents. They took photograph. Made payment. Told to join outside queue.
7. Joined outside queue. This is where the biggest wait was -- almost 20-25 minutes.
8. Then came actual test -- inspection, parallel parking, driving around in the neighborhood. Lasted about 15 minutes.
9. Went back inside, talked to greeting-agent, joined another queue. 5 min wait.
10. After 5 minutes, got the paperwork {official DL will be sent via mail}

[treaschwig]

Of the four corners at intersection of Kuykendahl and SPringCypress, 3 seem not amenable for driving test. Spring Cypress + Stone forest is commonly used because of neighborhood with STOP signs.

Parallel parking is on north-east corner of DPS building (next to some mexican restaurant).

Time to spend at DPS is about 2 hours. 20 min driving test, 15 min paper work, some wait time and prep-time.

[Vicman]

When I was a teen, I didn't have to take a driving test because I was parent-taught. I took a computer test before getting a permit, and after my dad finished the instruction I got a license. My sister had the same process. I bet it's changed though..

[arunathilak]

I did my road test on 03/29

First one lady came and did all the pre list check(turn signals, break... )

Next I did the parallel parking then we moved little front and did the backing then went to nearby residential area and did all the turns and stops then test was over

It was almost 15 min only and passed the test

Practice well !!!! Do it well !!!!


Thanks