AA Driving School

As an AA driving instructor it is of great concern to me Patricia that I read comments about my AA colleagues that are less than complimentary and I would hate to think that we were now all tarred with the same brush by you as I can assure you that we are not all like that. I take great pride in what I do and I do it with the pupil taking precedent. The costs of learning to drive are not insignificant and you must expect the best of service for the price that you are paying and it is incumbent upon people like me to provide that professional service.

In my honest opinion, first of all, you should not have been left standing on the appointed date and time as the delegated instructor should have had the courtesy to telephone you the night before, at the very least, to ensure that all was well for the next day. He should have telephoned you immediately the AA assigned to him to you as your instructor to say hello and have a general chit chat about how things would go.

As things turned out in the middle of the tuition, all would have appeared to be satisfactory until the time before the test. I obviously cannot make any comment about the instructor going awol as I don't know what happened. Again, at the very least, the instructor could have put you in the picture before he went awol and even more than that could have arranged for a fellow AA instructor in the area to take over your tuition, even at the late stage not to let you down.

I cannot speak for the AA driving school as it is perfectly capable of doing that itself and there are very clear rules laid down for instructors and pupils that its acts simply as the agent for the franchised instructor primarily in terms of receiving money for the tuition should any be paid in advance. The arrangement for the tuition is a direct contract between you and the instructor and the instructor should have had you sign up to that fact at the start of the tuition to explain the rules regarding that contractual arrangement. If anything, you could have an actual breach of contract with the instructor that could be followed up. The AA position from what you have said appears to be have been correct which is of course no consolation to you.

On the basis of your comments it appears, in my experience, that it was unfortunate that the AA did not reassign you to an alternative instructor at your first call to them as surely this instructor was not the only one in your area. It is a well tried and tested procedure if an instructor become unavailable for whatever reason for a pupil to be reallocated with immediate effect.

I trust that by now you have appointed an instructor with which you are happy and that a passed driving test is now on the horizon and I can only express my sadness that you have had to go through this regrettable circumstance that would appear to have been easily avoided.

Kind regards

Colin Storey
Blackpool