How to choose your Instructor

Simon Peace - Choose your Instructor
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When you select a driving instructor make sure you get a professional. Here is how to check …

Pink or Green

Many people who are working as instructors are not fully qualified or only do it as a part time thing to “make a bit of extra cash”. All instructors must display their qualification in the windscreen of their car. You can check their qualification by looking at the certificate, or asking before you book with them – if it is green then they are fully qualified but if it is pink then they are still training. Many trainees fail to qualify, and so a trainee may have to suddenly cancel all your lessons without warning. They also, by definition, have not completed the process of becoming a driving instructor and so the quality of their instruction may be in doubt.

Full or Part Time

If your instructor has another job and only instructs part time then will they be able to meet your requirements? Will they be able to take you for your test if it means taking time off from their regular job, and will they be able to fit extra lessons in if you need them? Full time instructors are the most practiced and so their lesson delivery will be smoother and more natural. They also tend to know the local areas, traffic conditions and routes better.

Support from a National Brand

Many independent instructors work on their own, using their own car and without extra resources. A national driving school, like the AA Driving School, provides professional support in a number of ways

  • New tuition cars, properly maintained and replaced every 6 months
  • Replacement car within 24 hours if required
  • Web site with access to a massive variety of resources including animations and videos of driving, news and products to help you learn
  • Ability to pay by credit or debit card
  • Continued professional development for the instructors
  • Quality standards and monitoring, and someone to complain to should you ever need it
  • You can even book lessons online or via the call centre who are there to help with any issues when your instructor is on the road.

The Full Hour

Some driving schools have introductory offers or lesson prices that are too good to be true. Check that the lesson price is for a full hour – many instructors quote a lesson price and then only give you 45 minutes (they use the last 15 minutes to drive to their next lesson).

Tandem Teaching

Often instructors have two or more pupils in the car at a time – this is either done to give “theory lessons” where the car is used as a classroom and does not move, or giving lessons in tandem where pupils swap seats during the lesson. Sometimes the first part of your lesson is used to drop off the previous pupil, and the last part is picking the next one up. You will then be driven home by the next pupil as part of their lesson (and they may not be at a high standard). The AA Driving School does not allow any of these “tandem” techniques so you get the full hour (or more) of one-to-one instruction.