Learning to drive is something most people feel is a rights of passage, going from being a kid into being an respected adult begins with passing your driving test. The reality is you are only a small step into a very long and testing road of patience understanding, consideration and respect. ... Read review
Advantages: Career enhancement, social pleasure, life style enhancement, major personal achievement Disadvantages: If you abuse this skill we may all pay for your errors.
Learning to drive is something most people feel is a rights of passage, going from being a kid into being an respected adult begins with passing your driving test. The reality is you are only a small step into a very long and testing road of patience understanding, consideration and respect. Any driver who thinks they are a good driver is already on the road to becoming a bad driver.
You can drive perfect for 10 years but it only takes ... ...life, your families and friends and not to mention the other peoples lives you may endanger or end. I know I am beating the drum hard here but as a driving instructor I come across confident and egotistical pupils daily, and nearly all of them scare the life out of me because they think they know most of what it takes to drive already. Give me a nervous shy quiet pupil and I will deliver to you a safe driver who will make the roads a pleasure to ... more
Learning to drive is something most people feel is a rights of passage, going from being a kid into being an respected adult begins with passing your driving test. The reality is you are only a small step into a very long and testing road of patience understanding, consideration and respect. Any driver who thinks they are a good driver is already on the road to becoming a bad driver.
You can drive perfect for 10 years but it only takes 5 seconds of driving badly to wreck not just your life, your families and friends and not to mention the other peoples lives you may endanger or end. I know I am beating the drum hard here but as a driving instructor I come across confident and egotistical pupils daily, and nearly all of them scare the life out of me because they think they know most of what it takes to drive already. Give me a nervous shy quiet pupil and I will deliver to you a safe driver who will make the roads a pleasure to drive on.
No matter who you learn with or how much you spend it is pretty much irrelevant because I could teach a monkey to control a car. What I cannot do is change someones mental attitude, that is down to the individual. With enough practice 99% of people can learn to drive in lesson than 50 hours, most within 30.
If you really want to be a good driver then you need to learn how to control adrenaline, how to ignore peer pressure, how to forgive others errors, how to apply concentration in the noisest of circumstances, how to anticipate a danger that is barely even visible.
Let me explain, would you feel comfortable knowing that your son/daughter has just got in a car with 3 of their mates and a 17 year old driver who passed the test 1 month ago. Would your child be confident enough to say to this new driver that the speed they were doing was 10mph over the speed limit and the music was too loud, the seat belts were not on? Oh and what they were smoking was only going to put them in danger.
When you want to pass your test and enter into the world of responsibility and safety then you should know how to survive in life, and some times that may mean refusing to drive your mates till they all buckled up or turned the music down so you could hear the noise of traffic, maybe a horn warning you of a blind spot danger.
If you want to learn to drive, learn how to take responsibilty and how to be a leader now a follower because too many new driver s are kiling their so called friends by trying to impress.
If you've seen a fatal car accident I promise you you wont ever forget it. Hopefully you won't.
As far as chosing an instructor goes the main points are these: Find out the instructors temprement, do they get angry and shout? Do they not say much? Do they hit you if you make a mistake? A good instructor should be a calm and collected, if they are getting agitated they are showing that they are not able to forsee and plan well so how can you learn these skills if they haven't already.
Do they use their mobile phones or call at the bank/shops during your lesson, remember you are the employer and the instructor is your employee, you pay them not vice versa and if they are not 100% dedicated to you on your lesson then fire them immediately. ( Take responsibility remember)
If the instructors car is often unclean or dirty then again why would you work in this environment, the occasional sweet wrapper or muddy matts is acceptable but cigarette ash or food packaging laying about is all a sign of someone not 100% committeds to their profession and your development as a pupil.
To add finally I have written this review knowing that it is not the kind of review you would normally get so am not using it to advertise my services. The points I make are genuine and honest. Driving a car is easy, keeping a car under full control constantly is hard, because that takes awareness and concentration.
Advantages: Get a full licence, independence Disadvantages: Costs a lot of money to learn to drive and run a car
...I feel so much more independent because I can go wherever I want whenever I want. I drive myself to work now :-) in my nine year old red Citroen Saxo which I bought myself :-)
If you fail your driving test don't give up. You WILL get there eventually! Thank you for reading xx ...
bluejules 23.12.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Independent Driving Schools
Advantages: You get your driving licence and it's convenient Disadvantages: It's expensive to learn and expensive to run a car
...two hundred pounds with an independent driving school. I really had no idea that this was the start of one very expensive journey, but I was at the beginning and my first time driving a car was finally here.
Thirteen weeks later and all my birthday allowance money spent on the first block of lessons, I had only just leant the basics of the driving side and also the rules of the road. My instructor advised me that the average learner needs the amount ... ...to his calculations I would need at least thirty six lessons, costing me around the £600.00 mark…a little more than I was expecting and defiantly different to what my friends had been advised, but in desperation to get my licence I continued with the lessons.
As well as the practical driving test I had to pass the theory test. The test comprises of thirty-five questions on topics related to driving and the rules of the road. To pass I had ...
Blondechick 11.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Independent Driving Schools
Advantages: A daunting prospect with hopefully a good result Disadvantages: Some of us are just not meant to be driving.....
Lots of people have given the cost and whys n where fores....I think I will go by the psychological angle...since I am a Psychodynamic Therapist......here we go.....
Its a fact.... Men do drive better than women....yeah I know its a sexist thing to say....but its the truth...but there is also a down side too.....what I mean by what I say is that Men usually have better co-ordination....its a fact of life....most women are a bit cuffuffled when it ... ...go'....come on girls you know that to be true....another fact is that Women are safer drivers than Men....and of course this statistic comes about because most young men seem to like driving around at all hours once they begin to drive...which means they are more likely to be involved in road accidents....
Of course in saying what I have said....there is also the fact that women soon get used to driving and learning all those co-ordinatory things ...
kiria 22.02.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Independent Driving Schools
Advantages: independence Disadvantages: being let down
Learning to drive is one of the best things you can do for yourself. I passed my test in February of this year and can honestly say I have never looked back since.
I realised I wanted to learn to drive when I decided to commute to university. It used to take me ages to get home on the train and bus I used to long to get in a warm car!
My Dad taught me the basic principals of driving and got me road worthy then I went with an independant driving ... ...with my instructor. I took my theory test and passed first time. People say the theory test is really easy multi choice questions who can go wrong? I can assure at £15.50 a time it is not cheap so REVISE. Only 60% of people pass first time.
Anyway then the day came of my test, I was secretly excited inside but worried at the same time. When we arrived at the test centre it looked shabby and uninviting when we got inside I felt even worse! The chairs ...
Anna145 10.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Independent Driving Schools
Advantages: Makes sure that people have a knowledge of cars etc before taking their practical.. Disadvantages: The questions and tests are too damn hard...
Firstly I would like to say that this opinion may be in the wrong catagory and for this I would like to apologise....
I first did the Theory test in May '99 and after taking it 3 times at a cost of £15 per go i eventually passed, great i thought I'll pass my practical and everything will be great. What I didn't know was how vigorous the test's are now, it's good in theory as there are lots of young 17 year old's who end up boy-racers ( or girl ) ... ...scrape by on the day, I however do not fall into either catagory , not saying I'm a wonderful driver, i'm not otherwise I would have passed by now.
Test no 1: All going well until he asked me to take the next available left, he said it so quietly and added to the fact that i wear an hearing-aid and did not hear him, I failed my test, when i challenged him on this he simply said you also failed for going into 2nd gear at 22 mph,well that's a new ...
bexxie 26.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Independent Driving Schools
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Advantages: Good pass rate. Lovely cars. Disadvantages: Time wasting. Disagree that we would drive across town to begin the lesson.
In the summer of 2004 I decided it was time to begin my driving lessons. After much deliberating about whether an independentdrivingschool would be better value than a large company I decide to opt for the latter and go with BSM.
At £21 a lesson, it was bleeding me dry but all driving lessons are expensive, whoever you go with...there's no avoiding it.
Now, I wasn't very well educated on driving, or cars, in fact on my first lesson when asked what the three pedals were for I replied 'Brake, gas and...reverse'.
I was useless. But the thing is, I'm a fast learner so after my first driving lesson (where no driving was involved) I felt ready to sit in the drivers seat and start to learn how to operate this machine.
On my second lesson, I did get a chance to sit in the drivers seat but we didnt move more than 5 inches the entire ...
A.Green87 17.05.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of BSM
Advantages: supposed to be 'reputable' Disadvantages: Expensive
When I decided it was time to learn how to drive, I chose the AA because I had a voucher for a free lesson and I thought they were a reputable company, but little did I know what I had let myself in for.
My instuctor nearly always turned up late and wasted my time. He was very impatient and did my confidence no good. AA's strategy is to make you take as many lessons as possible so they can leach you dry of money before your test. Another annoying thing is that they change your car every few months so you have to get used to a new clutch, and this adds yet more lessons to your bill.
I found it to be a very impersonal service and as a result I failed my test with them. Thinking that it was just my bad driving to blame, I left the AA Driving 'school' and started lessons with an independent instructor. He told me my driving was ...
Alexis1 13.03.2001 (03.03.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of AA Driving School
Advantages: good quality of instruction, Disadvantages: quite expensive and no student discount
OK, I know that the AA are not an independentdrivingschool but seeing as they didn't have their own category then I thought I would fit them in here.
Well, I have only had about 14 lessons so far, but I think that has given me good enough experience to write about the AA. Obviously I can't comment on the test but I guess I can always update this opinion later.
The car:
The car that I am learning to drive in is a ford fiesta ghia, it's quite small which obviously is important for a learner - you don't want anything too powerful or too large when practising reversing etc!
It's a totally modern car - with air conditioning, power steering and abs braking. Also, as soon as the slightest thing starts to go wrong with the car then the AA will replace it. I think I have been in three different cars now!
Instruction:
Well ...
