Intensive driving lessons

Caychadh

I've had lessons with three driving schools but am still not a confident driver. I've never driven alone but have only had school lessons and would like to be decent enough before I rope a family member/friend into coming for a drive with me! My last lesson was over two months ago so I'm quite out of practice and would like to do a few hours tuition at once to boost my confidence. I saw this- http://www.learners.ie/index.html on the internet and was thinking of doing the one day 6 hour course. Has anyone heard of this school or could recommend a school (in Dublin) that does several hours tuition in a day?
Any advice appreciated.

wil

Caychadh wrote: »

I've had lessons with three driving schools but am still not a confident driver. I've never driven alone but have only had school lessons and would like to be decent enough before I rope a family member/friend into coming for a drive with me! My last lesson was over two months ago so I'm quite out of practice and would like to do a few hours tuition at once to boost my confidence. I saw this- http://www.learners.ie/index.html on the internet and was thinking of doing the one day 6 hour course. Has anyone heard of this school or could recommend a school (in Dublin) that does several hours tuition in a day?
Any advice appreciated.

I dont know of any schools particularly doing these, I suspect even if they do, they are going to be pretty booked up for a while.
I'll just offer my own 2 cents as I started learning and passed in 4 weeks.
Didn't own or have access to a car other than instructors. Did test in his car. Did about 20 lessons total and 2 pretests with different people. Was well worth the money and time to get it done and out of the way.
Then I bought a car.

The most important thing is you get a good teacher, not one going throiugh the motions. A recommendation of one with a good passrate would be helpful, I dont know if they have this info here.
If you are pretty rough, I doubt 6 hours would be sufficient.
In the UK you can do intensive weekend sessions, three 6 hour sessions.
They might not suit everybody though.
You are probably better off doing similar to me, getting as many 1 hour lessons in over a month as you can. That way you are learning and getting experienced but also giving you body and mind enough to learn and time to rest in between.
In a 6 hour lesson, 2 of those hours might be wasted as there is a limit to what most people can remember in a day.

TBH, you learn very little with family/friends with you. They rarely know enough or are good enough to teach you how to pass. More often they willl prove a distraction, chatting away etc as you need to concentrate fully on what you are doing. Even today I find it is much easier to drive carefully when you dont have to llsten to the latest gossip/phone conversations etc beside you.

To go from start to good enough for the average person should take about 20 lessons with a good instructor.
From your instructor you need to be getting continuous instruction, explanation, written notes, memory aids. If you think he is not good enough, change to another quickly, no point wasting your time and money.
You dont need some guy who who seems to sleep his way through your lesson and tells you that you are great. Same money sorry time next week. He needs to give a bit of confidence but remind you of your mistakes and teach you how not to make them. Any praise other than that, well you paid for it, but it wont get you a pass.

He should continually remind you what the tester will be looking for in different situations, and should put you in to these situations to see how you respond.
Near to the test, try to get one or 2 pretests with a different instructer so you can have experience sitting in with someone you dont know and who may have a fresh view of your driving

And fellows especially, no matter how good you think you are, that is irrelevent, you are not out to impress an instructor, you are paying good money to learn from him, so listen and heed. If he is not telling you, well then all he is is a very expensive passenger.

thehomeofDob

How did you get your test in four weeks?

wil

thehomeofDob wrote: »

How did you get your test in four weeks?

I did it in UK.
My instructor sent in the application when I started lessons thinking it would be several months. We both got a surprise when it came back a few days later for 4 weeks time, so he just said go for it.
He was a pretty good instructor, even by UK standards. I really hadn't a clue when I started. Its a good few years now but most of what he taught me stuck.

Gregor Samsa

Caychadh wrote: »

I [...] was thinking of doing the one day 6 hour course. Has anyone heard of this school or could recommend a school (in Dublin) that does several hours tuition in a day?

I've never heard of the course or school, but I have to say that 6 hours driving as a raw beginner in one day would probably be very exhausting. I think it's designed more for people to brush up prior to the test, rather than starting out.

I remember when I was learning I used to be knackered after a regular hour long lesson. Of course, it gets easier with experience, but at the beginning all the concentrating on everything (before a lot of it becomes second nature) can take a lot out of you. For this reason I'd question whether you'd learn or benefit much from anything after the second hour. But maybe I was just a lightweight