How Many Lessons?

Undercoverguy

Just wondering guys,

I dunno ehat the legal requirement is (if any?) but when you first start driving on a prov licence how many driving lessons did you have before hand?

Or did you just go out there and drive....? So far i'm upto 6 lessons and am a conifident driver but i dunno when enought is enought and i should start doing things on my own.

Matt Simis

5 2hr lessons with the RAC, 4 of them at night, mostly dangerous backroad driving. Well recommended!

My brother on the other hand seem to take the suck it and see approach and hopped in a car..


Matt

Bam Bam

10 1HR lessons, however if you feel confident with 6 go for a drive with a fully licenced driver (A parent) and see how you do.

25 Lessons and written proof = 1 YRS NCB in Quinn Direct.

judesherry

Well I got 5 1 hours lessons and was told I didn’t need any more than wrote off my car a few weeks later. The training system in Ireland is a joke. I’m currently living in Holland where you have to take roughly 30-40 lessons before the instructor decides if you are fit to sit the test. Than you can take it straight away instead of wait for a year. Plus its meant to be a lot harder than in Ireland.

BrianD3

It's been a while since I did my test but IIRC I did 17 or 18 one hour lessons. The first 10 were done as 5 x 2 hour lessons. Driving school was ISM.

Worked too, I learned a higher standard of driving than required by the test (admittedly not difficult) The test was a cinch. Passed first time aged 17 made no mistakes at all during the test

IMO people who are taught to drive by their parennts are generally useless drivers. Also people who brag about how they "only did 1 lesson and passed first time" are usually awful drivers too.

prospect

My dad had been teaching me on occasional weekends for about a year before my 17th b-day, in industrial estates.

So when I got my provisional, i was well able to control the car, and had obviously gone through the ROTR beforehand aswell.


My first drive on the road EVER was from Waterford To Dublin....


I did 3 lessons before my test. The 3rd of which was the evening before the test, iirc.

Pherekydes

As mentioned on the other thread, I took no lessons and no pre-test and passed first time.

I don't think it should be allowed; the Dutch system seems more sensible, but there are always exceptions to BrianD3's sweeping generalisation.

(My wife, father and two sisters all passed first time, too, but with lessons)

Sauce

I took 5 1 hour lessons when I first got my provisional license. I then took 6 more lessons before my driving test which I passed.

I do not think anybody should be allowed onto the road without taking a certain amount of lessons. I have seen my cousin just buying a car and jumping in and driving without any lessons. She is an accident waiting to happen. She speeds and is always crossing her arms when steering.

The little things you learn from having lessons are invaluable.

ninty9er

Took 13 1hr lessons, plus 1 jsut before the test to get me in the mindset. I was told after 4 that i could take the test but had gotten 11 as my 18th birthday present

Squirrel

I'm getting 11(10 plus 1 free). After 2 my instructor said I could make a fair stab at my test. I've my third on tuesday

RobAMerc

There should be laws in Ireland that require you do a full set of situational driving instructions and pass test on each before ever being left out on the road.
i.e. You should under instruction have driven on m'way in one lesson, on back roads, at night, in city etc and have a level of competency in each before ever being allowed out on your own.

This government needs to get off it's ass and make some though descisions and I think Martin Cullen aint got the smarts or the b*lls to do one damn thing unless it panders to a public whim and btw helps generate mulla.

deman

Two 1 hour lessons the week of the test. I already knew how to drive but took the lessons to iron out any possible problems I might have had and drove around Letterkenny a couple of times. Passed the test first time. In saying this, this was back in 1986, so I don't know what the norm is now.

But I do know that here in Finland, it's a lot more difficult and expensive to do the test. You MUST attend a driving school which has a minimum number of lessons (I don't know how many) but this will cost around €1000:eek: . I think it might be cheaper to send my kids, when the time comes, to do their tests in Ireland.

RobAMerc

deman, don't do that mate, at least in finland they may actually learn to drive :rolleyes:

leeroybrown

I can't come up with an exact number off hand but I probably did around 13.

Originally when I started learning to drive I did 5 but then I was not in a position to drive a car regularly for over a year so I got another set of 3 (different instructor) to iron out any problems when I got back behind the wheel. After than I was getting practice regularly for a few months followed by another long lapse. When my test eventually came up I got another set of 5 pre-test (another instructor) lessons to make sure I would pass. Well worth the investment considering the long waits involved.

Ideally I think that given our dependance on the car in Ireland there should be a more formalised standard of driver training that ensures that all the core competencies required to drive safely are in place. I stil find it laughable that someone can be driving around on a full license with a perfect pass in their test without ever having to use controlled hard braking. Given the road conditions we have driver training should also place more focus on better observation allowing drivers to identify and avoid potential hazards early.

It's not enough to say 'get 10+ lessons' as the quality of driver instruction varies greatly and I know of cases where instructors have signed pieces of paper saying people have done 10 without that being the case. I was lucky in that the latter two of my three instructors were excellent and I feel that I benifited a lot from them but I'm sure that there as many mediocre onse out there as good.

AndrewMc

deman wrote:

But I do know that here in Finland, it's a lot more difficult and expensive to do the test. You MUST attend a driving school which has a minimum number of lessons (I don't know how many) but this will cost around €1000:eek: . I think it might be cheaper to send my kids, when the time comes, to do their tests in Ireland.

Speaking to an Austrian recently, they have a similar training system that costs over 1500. That sounds expensive until you hear that in his early twenties his insurance was about 400 euro. If you could choose that system in Ireland your average under-25 would break even in what, six months?