Friday, March 4, 2022

The MPU Story

 I sat this morning and was watching N-24 news, and this little item over the German driver's license came up.  Statistics were done on 2021, and Germans who were mandated to take the MPU (Medizinisch-Psychologische Untersuchung), otherwise known as the medical-psychological assessment....about half of the people failed.  In simple terms, those folks who'd temporarily lost their license....were now in the permanent category, and would never drive again (period).

Typically, you get the MPU reservation for drunk-driving or drug-driving episodes....or occasionally, if the cops believe you demonstrated a serious lack of judgement.  

The MPU has been around since the mid-1950s, and based on commentary....there's probably around 100k of these mental exams done each year.

So the one key catch to the MPU pass/fail....if you were noted by the cops with a .16 alcohol rate, there's a one-year mandate of abstinence from booze (zero, none, etc).  For a lot of folks.....just to suggest that you can accomplish that....is near impossible.

I worked with some guy around 20 years ago, who brought up one day in the office...that his German neighbor had been drunk on a bicycle, and was mandated to take the MPU.  

So when you hear the phrase of 'MPU'....you can assume it's a pretty harsh episode in life if you got dragged into this, and fail.  

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