JNR School of Motoring, London

I started lessons with John in July and in December when I left his "motoring school" I had only done 20 hours. I only joined John's driving school as he was alot cheaper than RED who cost roughly about £5 more an hour. Looking back on it I wish that I paid the extra as they were realiable, professional and very helpful. At the start I had made it clear that I wanted to pass as soon as possible and that Christmas time was the latest I still wanted to be learning.

In my first lesson John was very nice and seemed like a good instructor and at the end of the lesson I handed over the 300 and something pounds for my block book of 20 hours. However the next lesson I had he did not turn up. 30 minutes after when my lesson was so suppose to start I called John and he told me he had a headache. I understand that everyone gets ill but not calling someone? I let that one pass and about a week later he contacted me telling me when my next lesson was booked in.

My lessons were only an hour long until I passed my theory test so I past my theory test in August so my lessons could be increased to 2 hours. I learnt though that having past my theory test or not my lessons were as long as John wanted them to be. Normally that only being an hour. He also has the very annoying habit of calling or texting me under 30 minutes before your lesson to say he is late or cancelling the lesson all together. Also if my lessons started late he would end them early so he could always pick up his children. Once I even drove to the next learners house and have them drive me back. This was totally out of my test area (it took an hour to drive one way!) and a compete waste of my lesson money! John also talked and texted a lot during my lessons right from the start which I didn't really have much of a problem with apart from when we got to bits that I had no clue what I was doing. I was always quite confident and eager to drive however if I was a nervous driver I would have had a bigger problem with this.

As my 20 hours were drawing to a close I noticed that John texted me a few times with a "Christmas deal" at this point I had decided that I was not purchasing any more lessons with him. He did try to push his deal and telling me about the deadline (2 or 3 weeks before Christmas) even saying he would come to my house to collect the money for my lessons. In my last lesson we spoke about more lessons and I told John I did not think he was very reliable and he pointed out the lessons in the last 3 weeks were not cancelled. This just confirmed my thoughts that he is just out for my money!

When I left JNR I moved to RED driving school which I must say were brilliant. I felt that I was a confident in driving however this was mainly because I had generally driven on main roads which to be honest are dead easy. When my RED instructor took me down the roads of my test route I discovered that I had not actually been down the majority of them and although I was confident on main roads the small side roads that driving tests mainly consist of I was not very good!

I did pass my driving test first time with only 5 minors however I put this down completely to my RED driving school lessons. I would strongly advise against going with John. I personally believe that he is only after your money and once he has it then your lessons well they happen when he is free. Not the type of attitude I would expect a business man to have. I found it very frustrating and annoying with his constant cancelling of lessons and after 5 months of only 20 hours of lesson I was even starting to get bored with driving. Looking back on the 5* star reviews I do have to wonder how many of them actually had lessons with the man. If I was looking for driving lessons I would go with RED or another well known company. Honestly it is not worth the hassle!