Under pressure for 2 hour lessons?

Sleuthy

I have recently started taking driving lessons with a guy who seems like a decent enough instructor. However, I now find myself under enormous pressure to do two-hour lessons even though I have made it clear that two-hour lessons aren't an option for me. He does it by trying to go off on long drives towards the end of the first hour and going on about how an hour is not enough. While I would like to be able to afford two hour lessons, at eighty euro a go it simply isn't feasible.

Has anyone else found this?

Random

Not sure if this is the reply you want ... but just tell him you want an hour lesson. If there's a problem with this then get another instructor?

If you ask for an hour lesson and pay him beforehand .. and he then has you driving off somewhere else then it's on his time. Just say to him at the end of the hour that you're done.

DriveSkill

Totally agree with the previous poster. You get to choose how long you want the lesson to be and its up to the instructor to manage the time. Sometimes lessons do run a little over (up to 15-20 mins) but that is the instructors choice and you dont pay extra - most pupils are happy with that. However, if you are on a tight schedule and need it to be a strict 60 min lesson make it clear you need to be back on time - just bear in mind you are possibly compromising what you will get into each lesson.

BTW 80 euro for a 2 hour lesson is extremely expensive nowadays. Generally prices are in the 30 to 40 per hour and I would expect a discount for a 2 hour slot (thats standard practice). So, if 40 euro an hour then perhaps 70 for the 2 hours etc. Maybe look at a different instructor in your area and compare prices and teaching methods etc.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Loomis

You should get what you ask for. And shouldn't pay for anything else.

When taking lessons I asked my instructor if it would be beneficial to take a two hour lesson. He didn't really see the point. He specialises in getting people ready for their test and has a terrific pass rate.

If it's just a case of should you do two hour lessons I'd say no. If it's a case of him pushing them on you tell him to get lost.

And 80 euro? Mine were 30 per hour in Navan. Great instructor and I passed first time. Recommended by my sister who also took pre-test lessons with him and also passed first time.

Loula

Wow, 80 dolla is a lot to be paying, particularly for a two hour lesson that you don't want! I totally agree with Mr. Anderson, if its a case of this guy pushing lessons on you just let him know what you want. Surely there must be another recommended instructor around you? I paid 30e an hour before my test, and I often got longer than the hour, great instructor aswell-which is handy on the Kerry roads?!

Also, any chance this instructor isn't recession driven and fancies you?!

Old Gill

According the the Driver Instructors Handbook

Carefully distributed practice , divided evely over 4 or 5 weeks, is more efficient than working for the same amount of hours during an intensive 1 week course. For example, 1 hour training a day is considerably more efficient than:

1 hr of training twice a day
2hrs of training once a day
2 hrs of training twice a day

being an ADI he would be familiar with so doesnt have your best interests at heart. Some instructors prefer the 2 hr lesson as you dont waste time travelling between lessons. personally i think they are too long both for instructor and pupil and you do not get value towards the end

theocn

I wonder is his instructor an ADI. I think there's still a lot of guys out there giving lessons who haven't bothered doing the exams, and from what my instructor told me, there doesn't seem to be any crackdown on rogue instructors.

RSA ADI MARK

hi sleuthy,get another instructor you are paying at the end of the day ,long drives at the end will only benerfit him in hes pocket.

paddyland

I did a bit of driving instruction with one of the 'big' schools early this year, before the new ADI regulations came in.

From day one, I was under severe and constant pressure to screw as many lessons and as much money out of pupils. The slower learners they were, the better for the school, to the point where you didn't want to be 'too' good an instructor. You had to have the patter, and make them feel they were doing better than they were, while making sure they had to keep coming back. Their prices were the dearest in Dublin. And the school would ring me in the middle of a lesson, demanding to know how many more hours I had them booked in for, and if not, why not!

Two hour lessons were compulsory, one pupil requested one hour lessons for personal reasons, and I was reprimanded severely for not tying them down to two hour lessons.

Scam artists of the highest degree, under the cloak of being one of Ireland's most 'professional' and 'successful' driving schools. My horrendous experience in this place put me off a career that I initially felt I was ideally suited to. It will take me a long time to regain the confidence to do it.

Take my advice, ask around about the local independent guy with his own car, and avoid the big schools, who charge the dearest prices of the lot, and pay a pittance to their instructors.

DrivingInfo

paddyland wrote: »

I did a bit of driving instruction with one of the 'big' schools early this year, before the new ADI regulations came in.

From day one, I was under severe and constant pressure to screw as many lessons and as much money out of pupils. The slower learners they were, the better for the school, to the point where you didn't want to be 'too' good an instructor. You had to have the patter, and make them feel they were doing better than they were, while making sure they had to keep coming back. Their prices were the dearest in Dublin. And the school would ring me in the middle of a lesson, demanding to know how many more hours I had them booked in for, and if not, why not!

Two hour lessons were compulsory, one pupil requested one hour lessons for personal reasons, and I was reprimanded severely for not tying them down to two hour lessons.

Scam artists of the highest degree, under the cloak of being one of Ireland's most 'professional' and 'successful' driving schools. My horrendous experience in this place put me off a career that I initially felt I was ideally suited to. It will take me a long time to regain the confidence to do it.

Take my advice, ask around about the local independent guy with his own car, and avoid the big schools, who charge the dearest prices of the lot, and pay a pittance to their instructors.

Well said!
This is the reason I only list Independent Driving Instructors, and if I said what you said, I would have probably been slated for it.

The OP needs to get an RSA-ADI Driving Instructor and in my opinion if they are Independent all the better. Every pupil is important to the small guy/gal.


Regards

RSA ADI MARK

hi paddyland did you sit your rsa exams

paddyland

I sat the theory only. I paid €1,200 of desperately needed money to this driving school, thinking I was buying into a good career, rather than a scam. Same school advertises for new instructors constantly, promises plenty of work when you enquire, but does not deliver the promised work when the money is paid over. Telephoning me in the middle of lessons to demand more bookings was the straw that broke my resolve.

Having passed the theory, I would need a heap of money to continue with the other two tests, to include application fees, car hire, etc. Money I simply do not have. I certainly cannot speculate the money needed on the vague hope of work afterwards in a recessionary market.

While the instructors in this school were perfectly competent people, and excellent at their job, I would simply prefer pupils to support their local independent instructor, who will likely be just as competent, be better value, offer a more individualised course, and not to support and fund large operations who use their size and marketing abilities to skew the market.

ozt9vdujny3srf

I am paying 43 euros a lesson at a student rate, to a place that doesn't even pick me up, thats a relatively big company(local to south dublin, but big enough to have its own office and a locall number). And I am sticking with it til my test because the instructor i got was excellent.

I find 43 euros really expensive, and would like to be picked up, but the local guy i went with initially was rubbish, (kept talking about my holistic approach to driving), and every other local guy my friends had recommended to me was no longer instructing, and the nationwide companies instructors were O.K. but for 40 quid sometimes I felt I was just paying to be accompanied!

Its really hard to get a good independant instructor at these 30 euro prices I hear tell about on this forum.

Bit of a complete O.T. rant there, but sure while I'm on a tangent, I've no clue of the history of recommending driving instructors is here, but from the PM method I just got 2 PM's from instructors advertising their services, and no recommendations. If it's so hard to get info on the best instructors, then the only thing a learner has to go by is the marketing put out by the big schools.

This forums has lots of good info, and knowledgeable posters, but would be a much better resource if there were a better way for getting driving instructor recommendations.

Sleuthy

RSA ADI MARK wrote: »

hi sleuthy,get another instructor you are paying at the end of the day ,long drives at the end will only benerfit him in hes pocket.

You're right - going to look for someone who isn't a money grabber.