As usual the UK is much more flexible, but perhaps also more pragmatic than France: there is no requirement to take any lessons to take the driving test. They don't care. What they care about is your driving.

Now, in practice this means you probably need more than 20 hours with an instructor plus practicing with family to pass the test.

In California it's more than showing up (although I think none of the tests are particularly rigorous).

Minors must:

- Complete a 30 hour driver's education course and 6 hours of driver's training

- Pass a knowledge test with 80% or more questions answered correctly

- Apply for and receive an instruction permit

- Maintain the permit for 6+ months

- Drive with an 25+ year old adult supervising for at least 50 hours (including 10 night hours)

- Pass a behind-the-wheel test

Adults must:

- Pass a knowledge test with 80% or more questions answered correctly

- Apply for and receive an instruction permit

- Maintain the permit for 6+ months

- Drive with an adult supervising for at least 50 hours (including 10 night hours)

- Pass a behind-the-wheel test

Minors have additional restrictions on recently issued licenses.

Your CA adults requirements do not match what I experienced in 2005, aside from passing the knowledge test. Maybe that's changed a lot in 20 years.

It also doesn't match what I experienced in 2015, though having a foreign driver's license may have skipped some of the requirements (though they never actually asked for for it when getting my provisional license, they might have just assumed?), the actual testing felt like a joke compared to the equivalent in the UK.

I've had a CA license for going on three decades and they largely match what I had to do. And, yes, paperwork was checked as far as driver's ed. and whatnot. Regardless. The current requirements are all spelled out fairly clearly:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-licenses-identification...

I can't find anywhere on that site that lists the 6 month waiting period or 50 hour requirements for adults, only for minors.

20 hours? You were a quick one, that took me close to 40. Though I never was a very good driver, the car I crashed can attest to that (and thankfully with no corporal damage other than a bruised ego).

20 hours was the mandatory (minimum) amount. I think I did around 25.

iowa requires 30 hours of classroom training if you are under 18 - which almost everyone is when first getting a license. Once you have a licenese anywhere though you just show up. So your classroom time in frace counted in the us