Time for a weirdly technical question on requirements to get the Japanese gold license.
So, I know that officially the requirement to get your license upgraded to gold is to have a clean record for the “5 years + 41 days preceding your birthday” (the official wording has something along those lines). Normally a license lasts 3 years, so you should naturally fulfill that requirement on your 2nd renewal, provided you have been a good boy.
Now, bear with me: I converted my foreign license in Jan 2021, my birthday is in Feb and not sure whether because of the weird “renewal on birthday” rules or what, the green license they gave me had only ~2 years of validity, I have to renew it this year for a blue one before March (just got the postcard). Does this mean that in 3 years I will again get another blue renewal (because arithmetically 5 years and 41 days haven’t passed since I first got a license) and have to wait a grand total of 8 years (ouch) before upgrading to gold?
This system is pretty confusing to me. Not that I expect anything to change if I complain, I just want to understand whether I have managed to lock myself out of the gold status for 3 more years just because by pure chance I decided to convert my foreign one the month before my birthday and my green license did not last long enough to add up to the required period.
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Your first blue license only lasts 3 years. You need another 5 years after that (EDIT – your second blue will be for 5 years providing you don’t have any traffic violations). Then you can get gold. In other words, you have an 8 year wait, during which time make sure you stop at every 止まれ sign, don’t go through any reds, speed or cross any solid orange lines etc. Any traffic violations will put you back on a 3 year blue next time you renew and only after will you be back to a 5 year blue – i.e. one violation and you have to wait another 8 years, plus however many years is left on the license when you made the violation. It’s not hard not to break the law though, just don’t drive like other drivers who nearly always go through red lights, cross the stop line and plough through pedestrian crossings.