The secret to passing your driving test in New Jersey

It's been a long, arduous journey, but we did it. We got my youngest his license. And when I say we, I mean he and I. As a team.

Yes, he had to do the dirty work. The studying for the written test, the inevitable whining from me in the passenger seat as he drove too slowly, hugged the middle lane too closely, or made a turn sharp enough to practically have us on the two side wheels.

But I was the one who sweated, who prayed. I pushed and prodded him to practice, and who set up the garbage cans in front of the house, measuring them out step by step to ensure that they were "regulation" length apart. And I was the one who cried along with him when he failed his road test for the first time.

Dad gave him the "OK, big deal! You'll get it the next time!" But I cried for his failure like the mom I am.

Sounds like my first kid, right? No, he's the baby of four. But the first road test fail. Which meant yet another trip to the dreaded MVC (formerly DMV, as if the snappy name change makes the experience any less torturous). Now because I don't want other parents to suffer like I did ... I'm gonna share my secret: South Jersey is the place to go. Mays Landing in particular.

Unlike where he tested first in Monmouth County, Mays Landing's lines are shorter, the people are sweet, the test is easier, and it's basically the best kept secret in the 17-year-old drivers license game. A cute little road test track, a cute little MVC office up the road a piece (where everything is amazingly well organized) and a cute little provisional drivers license as a parting gift.

Worth every bit of the hour and a half it will take you to get there if you live anywhere along the 195 corridor. The Mays Landing MVC inspection/test center.

You're welcome.

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