Driving Instructor Training - advice from the Undercover ADI

Qualifying as a Fleet Trainer - Is it worth it?

2009-01-18T12:30:00.002Z

At the moment, many instructors are struggling to find learners to pay their wages.

Some are leaving the industry, some are cutting prices to compete, some are looking to use their skills in a wider market - Fleet.

Could this be the next get rich quick scheme?

Some fleet qualification suppliers are really pushing their courses at the moment, with promises of regular daytime/weekday work, paid by the day or half day as the incentive to train, but what is the reality behind this?

There are rumours of free fleet qualification courses (I'd love to be able to publicise these, but the guys who say they have been on them won't give out the details for some reasons.), but on average, the costs for DSA approved fleet diploma courses range from between £800-£1500, which is not a small investment, considering you will also need to take around a week off from your paid job.

For this you get a lovely orange badge from the DSA, which is often only recognised as an "entry qualification" by many fleet providers.

To get to the point where these providers will actually employ you, you may then be required to take another course in order to work for them - often another week off work and up to £1000.

This is before you get any work and will rarely guarantee you anything at all.

One of my colleagues who runs a successful fleet company is receiving around 5 CVs a week from fleet trainers with many years of experience and often with a plethora of qualifications.

Unfortunately he only takes on around 1 new trainer a year, and he reckons he is only able to offer them around 2 or 3 weeks work a year, often in specialist areas due to the over-supply of "standard" fleet training.

However, you know me by now and I have to say that there IS work out there. There is huge potential for professional driver training across the whole of the UK, but in an economic downturn, this may not be the right time to expect it to be the golden shot for your business plan.

So what if you've done your training, you've got some skills that the fleet companies want, you've managed to speak to the right people and have convinced them of your worth and they've offered you work.

How much is it worth?

Well the worrying bit is that some fleet providers are paying highly qualified trainers as little as £100/day. That's for a 9-5 job effectively. This wouldn't be so bad if you could get 4 or 5 days of this a week, but the reality of the fleet market for freelance trainers is that you will probably only get the odd sporadic day (or worse - half day).

You will need to re-arrange your current (and often loyal) customers around these odd days of work. You may need to travel up to 150 miles to provide this training, and not all providers will cover your travel costs.

But what about providing your own training - yep, go indy?!

Well, if you have the skills, you could charge from £250 - £500/day for your services, but remember that for each of these days you provide, you will need to spend time gaining the contract, working the contract, then providing all of the relevant back-up to service that contract. One day at £350 could take 3 days of work. And that's if you manage to get the work at all. You could easily spend a couple of days trying to win a contract worth just a few hundred pounds only to find that your competitors have undercut you, or that they simply come across as more professional.

So after that long post - the question remains - Is it worth it?

Is becoming an instructor a good way to spend your redundancy?

2008-12-13T20:58:00.005Z

There's been a massive increase in people searching for a few worrying things since the start of the credit crunch, though at least a few have got their heads screwed on, as we keep turning up for "driving instructor earnings".

Unfortunately though, we also seem to turn up far more often for searches for training with the big providers.

All we can say is - if you read what they tell you, then remember that EVERYTHING they say is designed to get you to buy their product. Even the ones who are "honest" about the business still want you to buy.

At the moment the reality is not good. Just have a look in your local paper - driving instructors are giving stuff away cheaper than Woolworths - for exactly the same reasons. They're going under and are desperate to get money in.

The simple facts mean that any driving instructor who is charging less than £10/hour is losing money. Actively GIVING MONEY AWAY in the hope that they will bring in work and that those people who feel that £10 should be the hourly rate for an instructor will stay with them when they put their prices up to £17/hour.

Fact is they won't.

The REALLY scary bit is this - the people trying to flog you instructor training will then expect you to put up with this kind of thing when you are a franchisee -

Surepass have a really STUPID OFFER, which makes you wonder whether this major driving instructor training provider has enough work for it's instructors.
Bill Plant are also guilty of idiotic irony, on this page which shows a load of ridiculous offers, desperate to drag work in, yet still has the brass neck to suggest "INSTRUCTORS URGENTLY REQUIRED"!!!! Must be frickin joking.
Or the wonderful irony of Passmasters page with (in their words) "slashed prices" on the same site as the page offering a "guaranteed position" but remember, this is NOT A JOB, this is a guarantee that they will let you become a customer and pay them a franchise - talk about positive spin!!

(These links will be removed soon as I don't like giving these morons any more publicity or search engine help. Their franchisees are already paying for this kind of lunacy, I don't want to add to it.)

These are just a few of the offers. Even BSM and the other big guys are having to offer reductions and daft discounts.

Some companies will bear the cost of these discounts and as they may actually help to keep up your supply of customers you may not mind that the customers then disappear after the offer has finished - you still get paid don't you? Well, yep. But who's paying for the offers again? Oh yes, it's the franchise fee YOU pay every week to the company who are generously footing the bill for the discounts.

In the meantime the public are beginning to believe that the right price for driving lessons is around £10-£15/hour, when really this would leave the average instructor earning around half the minimum wage for every hour they work (they usually work around 1.5 hours for every hour they actually get paid and overheads are between £5-£10/hour).

Worst is when the franchise advertise these offers then "recommend" that their instructors offer the discounts themselves (or worse insist that they do) at which point the average instructor can actually find themselves paying for the priviledge of working.

So what do you think - is becoming a driving instructor a good way of spending your redundancy?

Look for space

2008-11-08T22:48:00.004Z

This is a personal message.

I rant so often on here, I thought I better write something positive for once. (Don't worry, normal service will be resumed shortly!)

You can take this however you like, whether driving, testing, teaching or just as a motto to live life by.

Look for Space.

What do I mean by this?

Well we spend too much time looking for trouble, as drivers spotting hazards, as assessors and examiners and trainers looking for faults, as human beings looking for trouble. It's how we've evolved.

The only problem with this is that by looking for trouble we so often find it.

There is a common effect which any driving instructor will tell you about - our customers are trained (from the HPT onwards) to look for potential hazards, that we start to concentrate on them. Learners will naturally look at the problem and as the hands follow the eyes they will steer towards it. We often do the same in life - we look for problems and by looking for them we find them and hit them head on.

Many trainers are aware of the power of a positive instruction (as opposed to the classic "don't think of pink elephants" problem), where you encourage a positive response, which for some reason gets a much more immediate and positive reaction. If you say "don't think of pink elephants" you think of them, then need a moment to clear your head, or often, you can't get the damn things out at all.

If you want someone not to think about pink elephants, tell them "think about the full moon on a clear bright cold night". The effect is immediate, needing no concious thought to change what we are doing.

The human brain has evolved to think in terms of positives. This means that a negative suggestion will take concious effort to apply. "Don't annoy uncle Doreen this Christmas", will have a completely different response initially to "Be nice to uncle Doreen" (until uncle Doreen sits in your favourite chair and looks like he/she is expecting to have everything done for him/her for the entire festive season at least).

So yes, we should be aware of the potential problems, but instead of thinking "don't hit the parked car", start looking for space. If you can't find it, or it is restricted - slow down until you can find it.

Back to the personal note - start thinking in terms of what you SHOULD do, CAN do and COULD do. If you are thinking of what you don't want to do - do what the shrinks would term "re-framing" - start to think of that thing in terms that positively steer you into a good place.

Training to pass a test?

2008-10-12T22:36:00.005+01:00

There's a lot of instructors around who will quote a thousand and one qualifications at you to prove how good they are (I even know of one who advertises that he is a cycling proficiency trainer! I'm pretty sure this is slightly tongue in cheek as he seems like a pretty good ADI).

But what actually qualifies them to teach you?

The simple answer is that green badge. (The pink one will do, but this actually means they're ALLOWED to teach, but not QUALIFIED.)

So what does this mean?

Well, in some situations it means that they've taught themselves pretty much, maybe they've had a week or so's training, sometimes they've taken a bit longer and had maybe 60+ hours of training to actually teach someone to drive.

But how relevant is this?

The first problem with getting that green badge is that it is all about performing set exercises (imagine an exam when you know the possible questions beforehand), which are actually quite simple to practice. This doesn't mean that it is simple to pass - the majority of people are trained so badly that they do not understand the basic key principles of teaching (trained by people who profess to know them, but who then ignore them when it comes to training the trainers!).

I myself really did not understand the core competencies when I passed my part 3 to become a qualified ADI. I was lucky that my ability at levels of instruction and Q and A got me through.

The second problem is to do with the way that ADI training courses are run - they are run in the same way that the worst ADIs practice - they teach you to pass the test, but when presented by something out of the ordinary (the L-test that goes off route, or the ADI test where the examiner starts asking awkward questions or making mistakes that you weren't primed for) they have no idea how to handle them.

So what is the solution?

The solution is for ADIs to be trained in teaching before they are trained for the pre-set tests of the part 3 exam.

For all of you out there who are training to be ADIs who are wondering when it will all start to make sense - either your trainer is failing you, by not starting at the beginning, but throwing you into "big picture" training too early, or you are failing yourself by not asking your trainer to explain exactly what they mean at EVERY stage.

How should you learn?

Well it should have started with your part 2 training - understanding why you were doing all of this stuff, with commentary driving to explain every step you take. Then it should move on to the simplest of tasks - guided instruction, broken down in detail, and explained simply and clearly.

From here you should repeat the same task at the prompted stage, and then you should learn to grade your instruction from one to the other, incrementally changing from full instruction through to early clear prompting and finally to the subtlest of hints.

Then you need to be able to read your student to assess which level they need, and to understand the point at which they need no more instruction at that skill, while anticipating things which may mean that you need to quickly leap in with full guided instruction again at a moment's notice.

This is how people learn new skills - it is also how to correct faults in the skills someone already has (core-comps - sorting the fault).

Only once an instructor can understand these levels of instruction can they start even thinking about fault spotting and analysis.

Who cares about briefings, who cares about recaps, who cares about whether the PST starts in the test centre car park or not?

Build the foundations first.

How well qualified are ADIs? It all depends on the quality of their training.

Using a driving instructor's car for test

2008-09-27T21:48:00.002+01:00

People who just want to use my car for the driving test make me laugh.

When they ask, I usually bite my tongue and ask them why? Hell - why not use your own?

I even had a parent ask me this and I asked them why they would not lend them theirs (they had been teaching their son in it) as he would be more used to it - and what was their response?

"What if he crashes it?"

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So him crashing my only source of income would be ok then would it?

Not a chance guys. If you want a car for the test - hire one.

If you want someone to teach you to drive - phone a driving instructor - not a car hire firm.

Just in case you're confused, you can take any car to a driving test as long as it is in a fit condition to use on the road (would pass an MOT on the day, including having no warning lights, everything works) and it is insured for the purposes of the test (check with your insurance company, they usually are, but some will stipulate that you tell them - if you don't and you crash on test then you're not covered and you can guarantee that the examiner will sue you for lots and lots of money - get it sorted). It needs tax and a valid MOT and remember that the examiner will ask the candidate to check certain things on the vehicle before the test starts (lights, brake lights, screenwash maybe.....) so don't turn up in a wreck, or you'll have wasted your fee.

The car does not need dual controls, the car does not need to be of a certain size.

The DSA have a list of unsuitable vehicles (vans without rear side windows, some convertibles), which are deemed unsuitable purely because of the vision from the examiner's seat.

So please - stop asking us this dumb question. We would be stupid to say yes.

Intensive Driving Instructor Courses

2008-09-22T18:55:00.002+01:00

This one has turned up a couple of times recently.

There's a few companies who suggest that you can train intensively to become a driving instructor - very tempting if you've just lost your job or taken redundancy, or even if you're thinking about changing careers and want as little time "sans-wage" as possible.

The fact is though - it's a long process.

There's 3 exams to pass, each with their attendant waiting times (2 weeks minimum for part 1, then 5 weeks ish for part 2 and another 5 weeks for part 3).

There's also the Criminal Records Bureau checks, which can take a couple of months to sort out.

Both Passmasters and The Instructor College supposedly offer intensive courses - one of these is advertised as a 2 week course to learn everything you need to know to become a driving instructor!!!!!!!

Yeah right.

In the real world - you'll need to study like hell to get through part 1 (don't bother paying anyone to train you for this - you can do it with nothing more than the internet and the instructor forums - if you have a trainer lined up for the rest of the training they'll help you out over the phone and email for nowt usually).

For part 2, unless you are already an advanced driver capable of a very high standard of driving (IAM would get you close, RoSPA Gold would get you closer, DIAmond is the same as part 2), you'll need a good few hours - reckon on between 10 and 20 hours of training. Add on to this all of the private practice you will need to do to make sure these techniques are what you do ALL THE TIME, not just on your training sessions, and you'll find that you've done around 120 hours of driving before you take the test. Even if you have passed an advanced test, you'll want to have a couple of sessions to check you're up to the right standard at the time and working to the same standard that the DSA expect of you.

Then comes part 3.

Well the training companies usually recommend 40 hours of part 3 training, and will often insist that you throw yourself into one of your three part 3 attempts before they offer any more, whether you are ready or not.

The reality is that unless you are already a trainer or a coach, you will need around 60 hours of training for this part of the process.

Despite the promises of the big schools - you will probably find that you can't get enough training when you need it ("sorry, our next available appointment for you is at 2am on February 37th 2019, but of course this will be free under our promise of all the training you need - thank-you for training with us, have a nice day"). Many potential instructors find that despite signing up for a training "package", they still need to pay for extra training out of their own pocket to enable them to complete the 3 parts before their 2 years is up.

So - are intensive driving instructor training courses worth looking at?

Don't be bloody stupid.

So what should you do?

Look for a good trainer in your area and make sure that they can fit you in. Never pay for more than one session in advance (this way you can leave without being tied in to paying £4k to a company who can't fulfil their promises). Always expect it to be harder than you think - it probably will be.

Lots of hits for Driving Instructor Earnings

2008-09-06T23:29:00.001+01:00

I'm still getting lots of hits from the search engines for Driving Instructor Earnings, so I thought I'd offer you guys some links:

Driving Instructor Earnings Calculator - though not entirely accurate, this is worth a look. If you think things through carefully you can actually get a reasonable impression of how hard you'll have to work. Bear in mind that for every 1 hour lesson you give, you'll need to work for around 1.5 hours, for every 2 hour lesson - 2.5 hours. Don't forget to look at the "after tax" bit!
Becoming a Driving Instructor - The Truth Behind the TV Ads - A great article about whether it's worth becoming a driving instructor or not.
So you want to be a driving instructor? - A real article by a real instructor. No, he's not a happy bunny.
Instructor Training Colleges and Empty Promises - The infamous "Money for Cold Hope" article from the respected industry representatives - the Driving Instructors Association.
Driving Instructor Pay - How much you could earn - the optimistic but realistic version.
Driving Standards Agency Forum Thread - boy was this guy not happy when he posted.
Driving Instructor Jobs - Advice from Career Scotland, with the very interesting fact that only 4% of ADIs have flexible hours. ("Work the hours to suit you" indeed. Please add "r customers" to that statement.)
Money Saving Expert - An interesting thread from a non-ADI forum. Friends, relatives and Instructors tell their side of things.
Becoming an ADI - the 2pass view, written by an ADI.
Real driving lesson prices - what we see every day, just for when you are working out how much you'll earn based on £20/hour.

After reading those you should get a realistic idea of what you can expect. Good luck.

Enough Work for Driving Instructors?

2008-07-30T17:07:00.000+01:00

I really don't know if there's enough work for all of us ADIs at the moment. The fact is - no-one else does either!

Oh the joy of it!

There are lots of posts on the forums at the moment:
http://www.drivertrainingtoday.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,32850.0.html
http://www.adiforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1217356506
http://www.adiforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1216972910

...and we can never get any agreement.

The fact is, if you expect to just be a driving instructor in this business, you're gonna come a cropper.

Being a franchisee is the nearest to having a job that you can get, but it's the kind of job where your boss can send you home with no pay whenever he likes! Have a look at the last link to see what happens when an instructor trusts to BSM or AA to find them work - it simply doesn't happen unless you do it yourself!

Going independent is not easy, but the fact is that you will be in control of your career. You will live or die (metaphorically I hope) by your business skills.

You will need to:

Advertise effectively (websites usually work the best, shelling out £500 to Yell is possibly the worst)
Answer the calls that come from the adverts effectively (you can't do this if you're out on a lesson, but a good answerphone message can help to get leads)
Convert enquiries into sales (if you're not a natural sales person, employ someone who is, or find out how to do it without feeling like a nasty slimy creep)
Ensure your customers are so impressed with you that they tell their friends (reminding them to sometimes helps, or offering incentives for them to can help!)

Once you've done all of these if you can't make it then you need to get out.

There are enough customers for all the ADIs and PDIs out there - unfortunately 95% of instructors are fighting for 35% of the customers.

Think about how you find people.

Find cheap ways to get noticed.

Make sure your service is second to none.

Corporate Manslaughter and Driving at Work

2008-07-11T12:37:00.000+01:00

This could be a biggie.

Or it could just disappear like much of this legislation as no judge wants to be the first to hand down a sentence.

The fact is that there's loads of legislation to safeguard drivers at work, but until recently the fact that your driver had a license and was insured, and the vehicle was safe and legal was all that employers looked at.

With recent focus shifting to training and Health and Safety, the ambulance chasing "no win, no fee" solicitors have started getting in on the act, leading to more prosecutions of companies who haven't risk assessed or trained their drivers.

If a company employs a 17 year old who has just passed their test in a Corsa to drive a 3.5 tonne long wheel base van, would you expect them to take some time to risk assess and train this driver?

So would I.

In many small companies this is done by the company owner - all informally and to be honest this often works reasonably well. All that is needed for this kind of company is for the "risk assessment" to be formalised and recorded and for the training to be agreed and successful in proving that the driver is now safe in the vehicle.

In larger companies this process is taken in hand by the fleet or HR management, who will usually employ one of the big fleet training providers to complete this process.

The problem occurs in the medium sized companies - the ones who have grown beyond the ability for the boss to sit in for a day or so, but haven't yet put the procedures in place to ensure that the assessment and training process takes place.

These are often the same companies who have yet to formalise procedures for drivers or even start recording license details on a regular basis.

These are the companies who may be most at risk from driver legislation.

Save yourself a problem - get your fleet assessed and trained.

More info:
Corporate Manslaughter - Guidance from the Ministry of Justice

Corporate Manslaughter - Help from the HSE

Corporate Manslaughter - Guide for Fleet Managers from BusinessCar

Corporate Manslaughter & Driving - Info from a fleet driver trainer

Will it lead to more work for Fleet ADIs?

Well it probably will, but as always the majority of companies who take the time to comply with H&S legislation are usually the ones who don't really need to.

Until there is a big prosecution most companies will do the minimum necessary amount of training. The short term view will always be prevalent across industry.

Luckily there are some companies who take the lead and run with it - these guys are reaping the rewards, both financially and in terms of business efficiency.

Good luck to them.

Driver Training Questions

2008-06-22T22:17:00.000+01:00

We're getting lots of questions emailed to us that we've already answered (sometimes in great depth and of course with our usual diplomacy).

If you're unsure about what you're looking for - have a quick read through the "labels" in the sidebar to the right of this post. If you click on the one you think is relevant you'll get all of the posts which have something related to the label.

If you're still stuck and want to know something about the driver training business, be it realistic costs and earnings, whether there's enough work, or how to find a good trainer as an instructor, fleet driver or manager or learner - email us at:

undercoveradi@hotmail.co.uk

Enjoy the blog.
Feel free to comment or argue.
Link to us and help us get the word out.

Driving Instructor Lesson Plans and Diagrams

2008-05-26T21:53:00.001+01:00

There's lots of these about, some better than others, some worse than useless.

Be really careful before you spend your precious cash on any of these, because you may well be buying something which hasn't been updated since the 70's, or worse, may actually have incorrect advice - with the possible outcome of you failing a part 3 or check test.

Lesson plans for a controls lesson which omit the cockpit drill, reverse parking methods which seem physically impossible, no mention of ABS on emergency stop lessons - what problems have you found with the books you have shelled out for? Let me know:

undercoveradi@hotmail.co.uk

If you need some help with lesson plans or diagrams - ask your trainer, or at the very least ask on one of the forums (www.adiforum.co.uk or www.drivertrainingtoday.co.uk) don't take the word of the people flogging this stuff that they're good!

Is there enough work for fleet instructors?

2008-05-09T11:39:00.000+01:00

There's been a massive increase of instructors deciding to take a fleet diploma, or going through the DSA's 3 exam route to fleet registration, so I thought I'd better ask the question - is there enough work.

The immediate answer is no.

The long term answer is yes.....and some!

At the moment, most people who drive as part of their job are not trained. Those who are are usually trained through one of the big trainers (RoSPA, IAM, Drive&Survive), who pay their trainers between £100-£150 a day.

Recently there have been a whole host of new providers to the market (naming no names, you know who you are) trying to get a slice of the future cake. Speculative market entry I guess. There's probably about 20 relatively serious contenders who have actually started to make an impact on the business and who are picking up work for their main 2 or 3 trainers. These guys will occaisionally need more trainers, so they call on their mates within the business to help out.

Then there's another thousand or so Fleet registered ADIs who have added a bit to their website and are wondering where this famed pot of gold is!

Oh, we've been here before haven't we!?!

The fact is that providing fleet training involves a hell of a lot of work:

Get the enquiries - either by advertising, doorstepping or cold calling
Answer the enquiries (not "You've reached Bob the driving instructor, please leave a message and I'll get back to you.")
Send out proposals and costings which are professional, competetive but not amateurishly cheap and are suitable for the customer
Liaise with the customer to design the course.
Provide pre-course materials including profilers and theory tests
Assess drivers from profiles and info given
Assess drivers on-road
Design training courses to fix any problems
Cost training courses and propose them
Carry out training courses
Invoice
Wait
Pay instructors out of own pocket
Wait
Receive payment

Lots of work innit?!

That's why the training costs £300-£500 a day to the company, but the instructor only gets £120.

For £120 what would you prefer - three double lessons or travelling half-way across the country to meet people you won't get any connection with?

There are other ways around the problem. For example, the ADI federation are proposing a co-op of fleet trainers, but whether this will provide enough work for all of their trainers is a different matter.

You could always use your own contacts to work in your own area.

You could design a specialist course to play to your own strengths.

There really is massive growth potential for Driver Training in the UK and across the world, but as I'm sure regular readers know - it's not going to be money for nothing.

Would you?

2008-04-08T12:52:00.000+01:00

You've had a long day and you need to get home.

There's been people hastling you all day and you just want to get away from them, your mate's best friend offers to drive you, but you know he's been in the bar most of the evening and you reckon he's probably over the limit, but he's a trained professional driver and your mate tells you he's good at his job.

You and your three friends decide you'll risk it (the people in the hotel where you're staying are really hastling you and you just want to get away).

You get in the car, but you notice that the people hastling you are now beginning to get on mopeds and in cars to follow you - damn.

The guy driving knows you just want to get away from them, if that means going quick then so be it.

You want to keep an eye on them, so you don't put your seat belt on - you can keep an eye on where they are this way. The driver is going pretty quick, still trying to get away from the guys following you. You know they only want to chat and take photos, but they're sooooo annoying.

You're now trying to get away from them through the centre of a busy city, through tunnels, in a high powered Mercedes - pretty exciting stuff really.

.........

You find yourself crushed into the footwell, in massive amounts of pain.

You black out.

You wonder whose fault it was?

Guaranteed pass driving test courses

2008-04-01T12:57:00.000+01:00

Oh hell this one is so much fun!!!!

NO-ONE CAN GUARANTEE THAT YOU'LL PASS YOUR DRIVING TEST

I personally find it terrifying that people actually think that somewhere out there there's someone who can definitely guarantee that you'll pass a driving test. Who do they think we are - miracle workers?

The simple fact is - any company who actually offer a guarantee that you'll pass your test has thought very carefully about the kind of people who search for this.

They're fools who can be easily parted from their money!

And if those same people think - what the heck, it's guaranteed isn't it? Well read the frickin small print people - you're not getting a guarantee - what you are getting at best is a promise that if you don't pass - you'll get something back.

The majority of these "guarantees" simply involve giving you a few lessons free, or maybe paying for your next test. Hardly a guarantee, more a booby prize.

The searches that tend to have "guarantee" in them tend also to be aimed at finding intensive courses - which means usually that people have had to travel to and stay somewhere other than their home town - is this covered in the "guarantee" if you don't pass? Probably not.

Lets face it - intensive courses aren't the most sensible way to take a driving test. They become useful to certain people who have certain restrictions on their time, but these restrictions can usually be overcome in your own area, with a pay as you go driving instructor - don't be tempted to travel for one of these courses, as you are asking for a disappointment.

If you want to learn to drive - find a good instructor who can fit lessons around your lifestyle. To find one who does this you'll have to pay them a reasonable amount (anything less than £20 an hour is probably too cheap and a good instructor charging £25/hour may save you a fortune by teaching you well and quickly).

Once you've got the instructor right - then you need to do some work yourself. Concentrate, put every effort into all of your lessons and become an active observer whenever you are in a car, a bus, or even a pedestrian.

If you do this and keep a positive mental attitude - anyone can learn to drive.

You won't need any guarantees.

Charging for driving lessons without being an ADI - It's illegal

2008-03-26T11:34:00.000Z

For the guy who found my site yesterday while searching for this - it's illegal.

Unless you are a PDI (someone most of the way through the exams to become an ADI and registered as such with the DSA) then teaching anyone to drive a car under any circumstances (on or off road, full license holder or provisional) for money (or money's worth) is illegal.

There's quite a few companies doing this under the guise of track training, car control training, even some of the fleet guys use people who aren't ADIs to do this.

The fact is, it's still illegal.

There's even government approved training providers who do this and large organisations who advocate this.

But it is illegal.

I've even been on courses which practically sanction this and train us to train "assessors". If they assess then that's fine, but as soon as they offer any kind of solution to a fault recognised by the assessment then......

.....it's illegal.

Complaints about the Instructor Colleges

2008-03-23T11:49:00.000Z

This is a bit of an odd one - I tend to keep an eye on which searches lead people to me and in recent weeks this one has started turning up higher and higher.

It leads initially to a post about how to complain about a driving instructor (geared towards learners), so I thought I'd better address the issue itself.

As I've mentioned before on several occasions, I'm not a keen fan of The Instructor College - the one who are affiliated with Red Driving School and who insist on telling everyone out there that our job is really easy and that we're raking it in.

I get annoyed with them, because they mean that everyone feels that they can ask for a discount (one reason I don't do learners any more) and everyone else wants to become an instructor because they've been told that there's a "shortage" of instructors (ask any instructor if there's a shortage!!!!).

However, just to re-iterate previous posts again - there is nothing wrong with the way that they work - they're a company.

The claims they advertise are substantiated and I can happily tell you that yes - it is possible to earn £30k a year as a driving instructor.

I'll also tell anyone who wants to listen that if you shelled out to the instructor college without doing the research with regards to what you are going to get - then you're a fool! And in the modern market economy we all know that the fool and his money are easily parted.

A couple of pointers - ask how much training you will get - and get it in writing.

Ask what ratio this training will be - 2 trainees to 1 trainer? 1:1? Or will half of it be classroom training at 20:1?

Then ask yourself how many hours training you are getting?

50 hours at 2:1 = 25 hours.

14 hours at 20:1 = 1.5 hours.

So you are getting 26.5 hours for your £3k+?!!!!!

This means that you may find yourself paying over £100/hour for your training.

Hell........
...................even I don't charge that much!!!!!!!!

The price of fuel

2008-03-22T14:21:00.000Z

There's a lot of whingeing going on at the moment about the price of fuel.

Regular readers will recognise one of my personal annoyances here (see: http://undercoveradi.blogspot.com/2007/02/road-pricing-for-driving-instructors.html for a previous rant) and feel free to switch off, log out and pretend that the subject doesn't exist and that those of us who actually agree with the tax increase on fuel must be either mad, bad or dangerous.

The fact is - no government will raise the price of driving unless they REALLY NEED TO. It loses votes - hell, IT LOSES LOTS OF VOTES.

So why are they doing it?

Because they f&*%ing NEED to!

Despite the constant whingeing - foolish fat people continue to buy bigger and greedier cars (try buying a car that does what you need it to and nothing more - the price of your fuel will drop by 15-30%) and they also continue to use them for journeys for which they are completely unnecessary (try walking you lazy t*@t - your fuel figures will drop by 100% for each of these journeys).

These guys are the same people who drive aggressively and waste fuel (try going on an eco-driving course guys - the price of fuel will drop by 10-20% for frick's sake). They also complain that speed bumps ruin their suspension while driving past schools at 25 mph (slow down you w@n&£r and you might find that not only are your maintenance bills lower, but for some reason small dead children no longer need to be removed from your wheel arches and radiator grill).

They're also the same people who feel that the delightful flourescent charity boxes they mount on poles in areas where road risk has been assessed to be higher than normal should be removed. They also feel that these same charity boxes are only designed for raising revenue ('duh - yeah!!!) and have no effect on road safety (who cares? - they really are quite simple - go past them without contributing - like you do outside the supermarket at Christmas - you've had enough practice at it haven't you?).

The simple fact is that driving can be affordable to those who need to drive and use their brains to work out what the best way of doing it is.

For those who are selfish, greedy or ignorant it's getting more expensive - hu-f*<&ing-rah!!!

Driving Instructor CPD (and tangentially DIDU)

2008-02-19T10:10:00.000Z

Yep, the subject is really getting people hot under the collar right now, which probably means that something is being done.

Unfortunately it's probably being done behind the scenes, unless you're a DIDU member apparently - they tell all their members what is happening, and have more meetings with the DSA than any other association or union........I pity the DSA!

To be serious for one minute though, I don't really understand why the other associations can't do the same thing and publish stuff - yeah, it would confuse the hell out of your average ADI and they'd get really riled up and shouty (have you seen the forums recently?) and then realise that actually it wasn't that bad after all. Please - give us more information - we want to be given the chance to be indignant!

It would be good to have the information published widely and not just in links to the DIDU forum guys - if you just say you are members of DIDU in your signature and publish the information openly on the non-affiliated forums - people might appreciate the openness, be impressed by the quality of the information and join up, but all the underhand sniping just makes the rest of us even more wary of you.

(Apologies to a couple of the very genuine members, who do give good and accurate information, but there's a few of your members who remind me of Citizen Smith - a lot of mouth, but with very little brain.)

Anyhoooooo! Back to CPD......

Should it be mandatory?

The one statement from the forums I really liked was one of the regular contributors (you know who you are!) who suggested that it would be terrible if it was made mandatory, leaving it voluntary allows those of us who do CPD regularly to differentiate ourselves from those who can't be bothered!

I know there are problems with the idea of whether "doing a course" will make any instructor better and because of this I don't just "do a course". I plan my future career - I dream about what I would love to be doing in 5 years and I pursue it. This nearly always means taking some form of structured training alongside hours of personal study and practise.

Many of the guys seem to feel that by studying alone they can progress and to an extent they're right. Many of the guys feel that by combining that study with peer review and discussion on the forums they can progress.

Again, to an extent they're right.

But could you really learn and understand a new language by studying books, tv programmes, dvds, the internet and by logging in to http://www.teachingyourselftospeakalanguagewhichyougetnochancetorealisticallyandpracticallyputintoeffectineverydaylife-forum.com/?

I don't like things being made mandatory, but the fact is that this isn't personal - this is an industry wide thing. With the wide angle specs on I can see that if sensitively implemented (that could be another post in itself, but recent info seems to be that the DSA may have learnt from the mistakes of the past) there is no doubt that the base standard will rise.

The fact is - practical training with people who have superior skills can have a massive effect on your progression - something that doesn't sink in even after months of personal study can become clear in an instant when you're with someone who really does understand what they're on about and who can communicate that clearly.

You would have thought that people doing our job would understand this.

Red Driving Instructor Training TV adverts

2008-01-03T16:43:00.000Z

Yep - they're back!!!

The Instructor College always used to be linked to Red Driving School, and were the only people advertising on TV, so I'm gonna make a big assumption (possibly a mistake - correct me if I'm wrong guys) and suggest that it's the same company, just a different name on the adverts.

Well the search engine queries have all started up again:

How much does a driving instructor earn
Driving instructor training prices

and one of the more worrying ones:

learner instructor £30k tv ads

(lets face it, if you can't search for something with a little more finesse than that, you may not be able to communicate well enough under pressure to be a competent driving instructor.)

So, we come back to the same old questions of whether there are too many ADIs out there, and whether you can earn £30k as a driving instructor.

In response to the "too many ADIs" statement that always gets bandied around - well there's no shortage, but like anything else - if you're good enough you'll get work.

In response to the next question, I'm actually gonna change my answer:

No, you can't earn £30k as a driving instructor while working a normal week.

If all you want to do is instruct people how to drive - you probably won't be able to consistently clear £30k after expenses and before tax. However easy the salesperson with a few figures on a whiteboard or in a glossy brochure suggests it may be - the reality is that there are very very few driving instructors who earn this much. Those who do certainly don't conform to a 9 to 5 work pattern.

However - if you're prepared to be a business person, a coach, a trainer and use your skills and imagination - you can earn this and more.

Consider fleet training - you should earn around £120 a day before tax even when working for someone else. That's a 9-5 job (ish) which earns around £600/week if you can get the work. There's your £30k straight up.

Consider getting your own business training - fleet, or specialist. Now you can charge £300+ per day, but you've got bigger overheads, but if you're really good you could be working 4 days a week, and if you have a free receptionist (partner or suchlike) you could bring in £1200 a week.

Suddenly you're earning £60k a year.

And finally, consider ADI training You can charge £4000 for a course that has overheads of around £400, and takes around 80 hours to deliver - often at a ratio of 2 trainees to 1 trainer. This means that in 2 weeks you should effectively turn around 2 trainees, at a gross profit of £3600 each.

Suddenly you're earning enough to start advertising on TV!!!! (after doing the math, and having 4 weeks off a year, you should be getting around £140,000!)

The training colleges would have a problem with my math here, in the same way that I would have a problem with theirs!

Just a word of advice to all thinking of training - do the research on the forums and at the websites mentioned in the sidebar to the right.

Don't hand over any cash until you know what you want and are certain you are going to get it.

Driving instructor training shouldn't need to cost the earth, and having a successful career shouldn't mean penury for ever, but it's not as easy as it seems in the adverts. The exams take hard work and dedication, and even when (if? the overall pass rate for completing all 3 ADI exams is around 7%) you pass, you may find that what you think is a job at the end of a course is only a franchise, and no guarantee of earnings.

http://www.adiforum.co.uk/

http://www.drivertrainingtoday.co.uk/

Front fog lights when it isn't foggy........WWWHHHYYY?????!!!!!

2007-12-26T19:42:00.000Z

Just a quickie - but I just don't get it - why?

Are you just thick - and have left them on since it was foggy (3 or 4 months ago) but have turned your rear ones off?

Or are you so sad as to think they look "cool"?

Or are you such an incompetent person that you didn't even know they were on?

Come on guys - turn em off!

I don't know why it drives me mad this one, but.....it does.

Strange questions for Driving Instructors!

2007-11-23T17:07:00.000Z

Just wanted to put on a few of the questions that find their way to us - and some answers so people stop asking them (for christ's sake!).

What is an ADI Number?

This is the number your driving instructor has been allocated by the DSA when they became an ADI. If you are booking a driving test and don't know it - leave it blank, but make sure you let your instructor know you are booking your test or you may not have a car for the day itself!

How do you complain about a driving instructor?

Well - tell em you're annoyed is a good first point of call. If this doesn't work, then go above them - either to their franchise manager (phone the office if they're with a multi car school), or if this doesn't help (or if they're a one man/woman band) go direct to the DSA (Driving Standards Agency).

Can you become an instructor if you have 6 points on your licence?

Possibly - you'd need to contact the DSA for a definite answer, and it's quite possible they'll turn you down.

If you get 6 points do you need to re-take your driving test?

If the 6 points are within the first two years from passing your test - yes. And the theory test. Serves you right you pratt. This is not being banned - this is having your license removed, though admittedly the effects are the same.

If you get banned do you need to take your test again?

Possibly - look at the info you got when the case was decided. Often yes, sometimes you need to take an extended test. Oh, and you're a pratt too - get so proper training and sort your attitude out or you'll be priced out of the market by the insurance companies.

What happens if the speed or traffic light camera flashes you when on a lesson?

You get the points. If the camera is working. You can sack your instructor too if you want, but lets face it speed limits are pretty simple, and a red light is a red light - even 3 year olds mean that you stop at these. Some instructors still think that they should take the rap for these - if they do so they are breaking the law and could be struck off the register - not worth it.

Which car do you take your driving test in?

Whichever one you fancy, as long as it is legal and insured for the test (most insurances do not cover this even if you're covered for learning in it - so check before you go), and has a mirror for the examiner to use. Also worth checking if your car has had a recall on it which may not have been fixed or certified by a main dealer. Using your instructors car should cover all of these bases with a lot less hastle.

There's millions of these questions - if you're really stuck, have a look at the www.2pass.co.uk forum and ask the instructors in there - you'll usually get a really good answer really quick, or you'll start an argument between them - a win win situation.

If you're an instructor and have a few more to add - put em in the comments and we'll see if we can add to them!

Intensive guaranteed pass driving courses - again!

2007-11-09T21:41:00.000Z

Yep, this subject keeps coming up, and all I can say is -

THERE'S NEVER GONNA BE A FRICKIN GUARANTEE!!!!!

So stop searching for one on google.

If you want anything in life you've got to work for it - and that includes learning to drive. Did you choose your sixth form by guaranteed A-grades? Did you search for your University by guaranteed firsts?

No. You knew it would take work from yourself, so why is driving any different?

I reckon it's because you're paying for it - well I've got some suggestions for you - have a look at:

Driving Lesson Prices and Costs

and work out how much it should cost you.

Then find the best driving instructor you can get your hands on.

Have a look at:

Top ten tips for picking a driving instructor - if you want a quick guide

2pass guide to finding an instructor - with links to their directory and forum

How to find a driving instructor - an in depth guide of what to look for, avoid and ask

and don't try to rush it - it'll cost you more in the long run.

And after all of that - if you insist on finding intensive courses - make sure you do an assessment before hand - preferably with a couple of different instructors so that you can find out whether you get on with the person you're going to be sharing a car with for the next 30 hours!!!!

Illegal number plates and driving tests

2007-10-21T21:34:00.000+01:00

The DSA are tightening up their stance on illegal number plates according to their latest press release:

DSA Illegal Number Plates Statement

The fact that they are going to start reporting them is good, but on some of the forums I've noticed a distinct "who cares" attitude to this problem - even from DSA examiners themselves.

There's a few problems with illegal number plates:

Speed cameras sometimes have trouble picking them out, which means that the 4x4 that just blasted past you in the wrong lane on the roundabout will not get his cummuppance.
When reported to the police, these plates are often mis-quoted and regularly come back as being not registered to a car. Hit and run accidents with illegal number plates are often not traceable for this reason.
They're just plain tacky.
They show that the person is happy breaking one law - why not a few more? Is the car actually insured for the test?

So please guys - don't just report them - refuse to take tests in them.

Also - if they're illegal - could the people who make these plates up not be prosecuted? I genuinely don't know the answer to this one, but I'm reasonably sure that someone will email me the answer! Thanks.

The Right to Drive?

2007-10-19T10:05:00.001+01:00

The new driver act has kicked in - and we've all had the phone call from the distraught 18 year old who feels hard done by when they have their licence removed from them.

"But I only got 2 - I was doing 32 in a 30, and the second one was for being on me fone - I thought you had to get six points before you were banned?!"

Hmmm - just in case anyone has not understood the stupidity of the above - let me explain:

Many driving offences carry a different penalty point weighting. It just so happens that a speeding camera fine is usually 3 points, as is talking on your mobile phone. So with those two stupid actions - 6 points and if you passed your test less than 2 years ago - you're back to square 1 - take your test again.

Also - "32 in a 30" - do you think we're thick? You wouldn't trigger a camera until you were going 33, or more likely 35 or above.

Grrrr!

I love these phone calls - I'm always polite, and I will always accept someone if they have learnt with me, or if they understand what they have done, and why they shouldn't have, but the ones who are just angry that "everyone's gettin at me - shutup, shutup, oh whateva" can go hang.

Unfortunately, though I personally think this is a great idea - I understand that it has had a very limited effect on road safety.

In fact - it may even have made things worse. People who have been banned start driving illegally. They have got used to driving and had begun to take it for granted, so when it is taken away they decide to continue, not understanding the dangers and life wrecking stupidity of what they are doing.

And this leads me to the main problem with all of this - what can the police do? What do the police do? Surely impounding every car that is driven on the road without insurance, tax, or MOT would go some way toward solving the problem. Then link any release fee directly to the cost of the policing, the impound and the paperwork of the operation (2 coppers - 2 hours, 1 administrator - 1 hour, 1 recovery truck - 3 hours, 1 compound - 3 days, maybe around £500, with an extra £100 per day until someone who is insured for the car itself turns up to collect it!).

Criminals would no longer have cars. This may help the fight against normal crime too just a little!

Cost of Training Courses

2007-10-07T11:09:00.000+01:00

CPD hasn't arrived yet, but most of us with a couple of braincells are already involved with training ourselves almost as much as we do training our customers.

There's one thing that seems to run through all of these courses - it doesn't matter which course it is - there's a company set up to administer the course, and of course they have to cover their costs, but some of these costs are pretty high.

Cost of course - £420 for 2 days - no problem. Excellent 1 to 1 training with loads of useful information.

Cost of registration - £100 - just to put my details on a computer and a phone call to confirm things? Profit to administering organisation - probably £80

Cost to be a trainer for the courses - £250 - this covers a few booklets, cost value of which I would put at no more than £25 for printing, and probably could've been designed over 2 days with an expert, 1 day with a graphic designer - total design cost - no more than £1000. Considering that there's probably between 500 and 2000 of these courses taken per year that means at most an extra £2. Profit to organisation - £220

Maybe I should stop being a trainer, design a course - sell the idea to government for their backing, then make it compulsory and rake in £300 profit from every trainer who signs up to promote my course for me!

Whoopee.

Trying to make more sense of this blog!

2007-09-30T10:35:00.000+01:00

I'm in the middle of sorting out all the tags so that you can search for stuff better - hope it helps.

Guaranteed Pass Courses

2007-09-22T09:17:00.000+01:00

One of my associates runs a website which is designed to turn up high on the search engines for this phrase, and he gets over 100 hits a day with people looking for this kind of course!

I know that we all want some kind of guarantee when we buy anything these days, but what do they really think that we can guarantee?

After looking at this for a few minutes, I've found a lot of sites offering free retests, and a couple who will repay your test fee if you fail, but I really feel that people want a guarantee that they will pass!

There's one guy out there who offers a "guaranteed pass" rate on his site - it's nearly £2000! I reckon the principle there is that he should be able to get anyone through with that many lessons, and if not they'll give up. I reckon he'll regret that sometime! 100 lessons isn't unknown, and I've seen a few customers who would take him to court if he didn't keep giving lessons after that!

Yep - people really do want "a driving license or your money back"!

What kind of society do we live in?

The Average Price of Driving Lessons Going Up

2007-09-15T09:34:00.000+01:00

As economists will tell you - when you get a glut of supply, prices will drop.

They will also tell you that when prices drop enough, suppliers will stop producing, as they cannot afford to continue, which ironically pushes the price back up!

At the moment, there is a glut of driving instructors across the country, but more and more instructors are giving up the job and returning to "normal" paid jobs. The insecurity and low pay has taken it's toll on them. Irresponsible customers who cancel late and pay irregularly are often cited as the final deciding factor - just a few phone calls during the week can half the weekly profit.

And when the excuse from the pup is "well I can't afford it anymore" then we have to wonder if we want to keep servicing these kind of people.

More and more of the bigger companies are advertising "first 5 lessons for £49" or similar - an excellent advertising ploy, drawing lots of people in to start lessons which are not economically viable for the driving instructors who are pushed into offering them by their franchises. Unfortunately the people who can afford driving lessons at less than £10 an hour simply can't afford them at £20 an hour, or they decide they want to try another special offer from the next franchise, so you lose money on 5 hours work, and get nothing from it.

So we are going to lose instructors.

More instructors will move into specialist training like Fleet and FLH.

Learners will need to take more lessons to fulfil their year long learning obligations.

Ergo - prices will rise.

Considering that at the moment, it costs on average around a grand to learn (45 hours at £20 an hour, plus a bit to be insured on your dad's insurance, test fees, dvds etc), how much do we think the public will pay.

I reckon that if I couldn't drive, it would be worth well over £3000 to me.

Roll on the £50 driving lesson. I might even move back to teaching learners for that money!

Urban 4x4 Drivers & the "False sense of security" factor

2007-09-09T09:48:00.000+01:00

I know that urban 4x4s divide people into 2 VERY distinct groups - those who love em, and those who think they should be banned.

Well I can't stand them. They are an outward sign that the person who has bought them is greedy, selfish and has an inferiority complex. The problem with all of these things is that the symptoms they produce are pretty bad for other people on the road.

They are the car of the bully and the bullied.

The bully feels their own inferiority and feels the need to impose himself on the road, the traffic situation and other people. The bullied feels that everyone else is doing that to them, so they get in their 4x4 and try to fight back - the effects of both are exactly the same.

I often meet people, mainly ladies (sometimes their husbands) who justify their 4x4's from a safety point of view. Unfortunately this is a foolish argument.

The safety of a 4x4 is a myth.

Anyone outside the 4x4 when it impacts is much more likely to be killed or seriously disabled. This can be easily seen when you stand a 7 year old in front of the bonnet of (for example) a mini and a range rover. If you then imagine that both cars are travelling at 20 mph you can see vividly the problems. The mini will bump them over - possibly breaking a leg on the bumper, or hurting their head on the (impact designed) bonnet. The Range Rover (even without the addition of bull bars) will probably break their hip then run them over.

And the fact is - the height of the 4x4 moves everyone outside the vehicle out of the line of sight of the driver - especially young children to the rear of the car.

Other drivers are just as much at risk - if hit by a 4x4 it will ride up on top of the "normal" car crushing the inhabitants. The steel ladder chassis will crush anything it hits.

The really strange fact is that statistically you are actually 1% more likely to be killed or permanently disabled if you are INSIDE the 4x4 in a collision. This is because of the instability of 4x4's (hit a motorway barrier in a normal car - you bounce off, in a 4x4 - you go over the top and wind up in the middle of the other carraigeway on your roof!), and the fact that though they feel like normal cars, they don't drive like them. A 4x4 can often get amazing grip in the worst of conditions due to their design, but in these conditions there is no improvement in braking over a normal car.

The salesmen will tell you how amazing the brakes are, and will go into great detail about how technologically advanced they are, which is true - they have to be. The problem comes when you actually expect your Rangie Sport to react like a BMW - it can't. Impossible. 3 tonnes of agricultural machinery will not stop in the same way. It also won't warn you of the fact. In the BMW you'll notice the slight wheel slip on the bad road surface - it'll make you nervous and you'll slow down. In the 4x4 you won't notice it until you hit the brakes and suddenly find the ABS kicks in earlier because it simply doesn't have enough grip to hold the car. Though having ABS on a car will help it slow more quickly in real life conditions - having a lighter car going slower will stop you in half the distance!

The "False Sense of Security" Factor:

This is the worst bit. We've all been in one - how nice does it feel to be so high above the hoi-polloi, in such a beautifully engineered machine - the sense of superiority, the solidity, the view so far ahead. The way it gets grip even on wet and slippery country lanes, keeps pulling hard through heavy rain.

And that is the downfall - it feels like it's handling perfectly, just like a car - a good one at that, but it won't stop, and when it hits something we're all in trouble.

There needs to be a new licence category for vehicles which weigh over 1.5 tonnes.

People need to understand the huge differences these vehicles introduce to the way you should drive them.

Driving Instructor Earnings - AGAIN!!!!

2007-09-02T00:13:00.000+01:00

Yep, this is a never ending one - it's so much fun when you throw the subject into a thread on a forum and watch the two sides jump at each other!

Simple fact is - yep, you can earn a lot in this business!

No, it aint an easy ride!

As is always the case, there will always be those who cry that they've not made their On Target Earnings in their first year, those who cry that they're never going to make the promised £30k (or £40 if you take note of some company's promises!), and never make the effort to get there. There will always be those who don't rightly care - they never expected to make £30k anyway and just wanted to tick over thank you very much.

And then there will be those who do, have, or will make the cash. Easily in some cases. These are the guys who treat it like a business. If you opened a shop you wouldn't expect to make money without advertising, making the place look nice, offering stuff that other shops didn't, and generally being better than those around you.

So why should being a driving instructor mean that you can just "do the job" and expect the cash to rush in. It won't. It will go to the guy down the road who works harder, works smarter and has a better website!

Have fun everyone!

Young Male Drivers

2007-08-29T22:58:00.000+01:00

We've all been one. Well, half of us have. Well, the half of us who're male and learnt to drive before we were 21 were anyway.

Hell, you get the idea.

Showing off, pushing ourselves and our cars - I know I did it, but did I do anything completely stupid? I'm not sure if I'm honest - I know I made a few bloody silly mistakes though. I was never really the type to show off much, but not engaging the brain before engaging the gear? Yep, that was me.

After watching ITV1's program "Crash Scene Investigators" tonight I distinctly had the feeling that I'm glad to be here several years later.

We all know the stats - the number one killer of young women is the men who drive them around.

If there's a better argument for feminism I'm not sure I've heard it yet.

The only way to do anything when attitude is the main cause - make them want to be better drivers.

Until we can make driving well fashionable we will have trouble. Advanced driving is boring - it's a load of old duffers telling us we need to be better before we can speed. It needs to be repackaged, rebranded, and have a qualification that people understand - NOT 5 DIFFERENT ONES.

Lets have 1 standard that we can all aim for - a standard above the L-test that all drivers should have to attain before they can use their driving at work. Maybe we should all have to display our standard when driving - L-plates, FLH, Advanced, etc. Then people could decide whether they want to get into a car with someone who hasn't got the advanced licence yet.

Maybe we should have to display our insurance too - and make this obvious - so that those girls can see if they're getting in a car with someone who isn't insured.

Then with some serious education, lets get people thinking that risk taking in a car is really pretty pathetic (small dick syndrome - I reckon someone should do scientific studies - I reckon we could prove this one!), and that there's an easy solution - get out of the car driven by the pratt.

One final suggestion - make advanced tests of all types accessible. Let people get on a skid pan and get scored on it. Get more people to take up track days - settle the "who's fastest" thing once and for all. Score people on their control skills, their observational skills. Begin a "Britain's best driver" contest. Have a national league table that people can log into and see how well they're doing. See the people who take training rise to the top, and the loons fall to the bottom.

Reward the ones who win.

Prove who is the best - accurately.

Make the ones who feel they're better than they are face the truth.

Driving Instructor Pass Rates

2007-08-18T17:59:00.000+01:00

Yep, that old chestnut is beginning to rear it's ugly head again.

People have just realised that the DSA seem to want to publish our pass rates along with all other info about us they can dredge up. The argument may never be held unless someone starts shouting about it, so maybe I'll start.

If someone phones me up and asks my pass rate I tell them it's frickin awful.

Then wait for the gasp of astonishment.

I ask people what they've been quoted and I get replies of 75%, 90%, 95%. When I tell them that the best "official" pass rate I've ever had hard evidence of was 72%, and he really screened his customers - no girls, no learning difficulties, and as soon as he caught any nervousness he tried to fob them off on another ADI.

The average pass rate for a good ADI is around 60% in reality, because we can't take the test ourselves and I know some OUTSTANDING instructors whose pass rate is around 30% due to the way they work.

Specialist instructors for people with disabilities, instructors who deal with nervous customers, auto instructors who mainly get women and people who struggle with handling a car all have lower pass rates than the average, but often are better instructors with more experience.

So next time someone asks you your pass rate - tell them it's shit! Maybe then we'll start getting people away from using that as a sales point.

Unfortunately when the DSA start publishing pass rates we may all be in trouble! If this is done without some serious caveats attatched I will stop teaching learners and move completely into FLH training. I'll miss it, but at least I'll have a 100% pass rate!

Guaranteed pass driving courses

2007-08-09T15:23:00.000+01:00

Why oh why do people think that these can exist.

Every other day I get someone trying to search for these winding up on my site.

Do they think that we can take the test for them? (Knowing some driving instructors even that wouldn't be guaranteed!)

In what way can we guarantee a test pass? Do they want a full moneyback guarantee if they fail? That's hardly going to happen, or people would deliberately fail, then take it again, saving themselves a grand or so.

I've had people ask me if they can buy a licence, if I can just "sign them off", and even if they can just prove that they've driven in their own country for so many years!

I was just undertaken by two people who had obviously been driving in another country for years today (foreign numberplates, left hand drive, luggage completely obscuring the rear view) - and they were still driving as though they were in another country - psychotic, stupid and completely illegal I suspect.

Well there is one way you can guarantee a pass:
Drive how you've been taught.

It really is as simple as that.

I think the bubble is about to burst.

2007-08-04T10:28:00.000+01:00

I'm not normally one to be pessimistic (yeah right!), but I reckon that there is a tipping point coming in regards to our business.

The saturation of ADI's/PDI's is continuing, as is the constant advertising for new people to join the industry.

Every ADI who is getting frustrated with learners is thinking of becoming a trainer (if you let learners frustrate you - you'll never survive PDIs!), all looking to encourage more punters to join the business.

And what many people may not have recognised is that with the new 1 year learning rules coming in, many learners will be priced out of the market completely.

Very few learners can afford to insure a car privately, and very few parents want to supervise, so the majority of the heralded 100 logged hours driving will be with driving instructors. Simple maths will tell you that this will mean spending around £2000 before test fees, if not more.

At the moment, many of our customers start to learn with no understanding of how much it will cost, just thinking that £20 a week is ok, and well,...me da sez it'll only tek a coupla month. By the time they pass, they've spent nearly £800 without realising it. When they are told they MUST learn for a year and MUST take 100 hours, then even the least mathematically minded will understand that it'll be £40 a week until this time next year!

That may just make the difference. It's a lot of money to many people. We may find ourselves losing customers to public transport, and once people get past 20 without driving they tend to stay non-drivers unless their situation changes.

Will there be enough work?

There will certainly be enough driving instructors!

How are you going to get through it?

Too much work - do I franchise it out?

2007-08-01T23:30:00.000+01:00

Yep, it's true.

I've turned down 6 learners in the last fortnight.

I've dissuaded 3 people from taking intensive courses.

I've given a lot of information to a potential driving instructor in the hope that he will do a lot of research. Then I gave him my competitor's number!

And I still haven't got enough time to think...

And no. I'm not earning the fabled £30k a year - some of us simply can't do that many hours - we go slightly mad, or feel terrible that we're not offering value for money.

It does raise the question though - should I start a franchise? Should I charge someone £100 or more a week just for doing the same stuff I do for myself? Should I just find an ADI who wants to pay me an intro fee for customers? Should I take on a PDI and train them up "in my own image"?

Or should I just stick to being the one man band, be glad that I can pick and choose my own customers (not take all the dross that phone up with the same stupid questions), and just keep raising my prices until it settles down?

I'm voting for the easy life guys, sorry. I promise I'll pass on the work if you're good. If you're not, you just won't get a mention.

Oh, and if you want driving lessons - don't ask the price as your first question - there's more important things when choosing a driving instructor. If you ask the price you'll immediately get the brush off from me, because I reckon you've probably done very little research (prices are published on my website) and from experience you'll mess me about, won't listen to my advice, and you'll cancel on me when I really don't need the trouble.

I'll stick with the people I like the sound of.

(PS: Apologies for guys out there who're struggling - I guess I'm lucky - give it time and either you'll be busy too, or I'll be hoping you refer someone my way!)

AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

2007-07-24T12:21:00.000+01:00

THE PRICES ARE ON THE FRICKIN WEBSITE PEOPLE!!!

Why do I keep getting these phone calls? Now I know I have to stay positive, I have to portray a good image of the company, but to be quite honest I'm sick of it.

It really puts me off a customer, and as I'm busy I'm not desperate for everyone who comes along, so I'm starting to get picky.

If someone asks for prices I try to find out where they found my number - if they say on the website then they've lost the game - I won't take them on. Let them find another mug - I really have no interest in wasting my time with foolish lazy people who don't actually look at the information they're given.

If however they ask articulate questions, based on intelligent research and sensible thought - I'll do them a cheap rate.

So be warned - an interview (be it over the phone or not) works both ways - if you don't make a good impression I won't take you on.

I reckon I'll save myself a lot of stress and aggro, and might have some fun at the expense of ill prepared and badly organised people which always makes me feel better!

(Should I have got out of bed the other side this morning?)

Minimum driving age of 18

2007-07-19T15:35:00.000+01:00

Well, this time the rumour is gaining weight.

Insurers are backing it, politicians are backing it, and it seems like the more vociferous (and less intelligent) tabloids are backing it.

Once these things start to gel, it will only take a couple of years for it to be law.

Ah well - that's going to be an interesting year for driving instructors!

Luckily most of my clientelle is slightly older than 17, but there will be a huge oversupply of instructors for that year - some of us will need to make way for the rest to earn a living.

Unfortunately though - I can't really see it having much effect in itself on accident statistics.

Some of the other suggestions might help though - one is the training log idea - driving for 120 hours or so before taking your test. This may or may not be with a driving instructor, but it woud certainly build experience - one of the main problems with novice drivers.

Another - to restrict young passengers (between 10 and 20 yrs old) could prove interesting - and again could help reduce the accident stats (who didn't show off to a car full of friends?!). I'm not sure how the police may find enforcing this one - they may welcome the ability to stop a vehicle full of youngsters on suspicion - but they may just be sick and tired of yet more rules to enforce.

Realistically a lot of this will come down to something many of us have been suggesting for a long time - we actually need more police on the road to enforce the laws that regulate which driving attitudes are acceptable and which aren't.

Complaints about driving instructor training colleges

2007-07-18T07:04:00.000+01:00

(Since posting this - we've had a lot of traffic for people looking to complain about their driving instructor - if you want to do this it's easy - just contact the driving school they work for, or failing that - the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) http://www.dsa.org.uk/ in the meantime, back to the thread in hand.......)

Yep - it's that time of the month again when all the people who didn't do the research, didn't engage their brains, didn't look beyond the glossy TV ads start complaining again!

Sorry guys - you deserve everything you get!

It takes about 2 minutes searching on the internet to find the forums and some serious independent advice. It takes even less to remember that you don't get owt for nowt.

I really am sick and tired of people saying that these colleges should not be allowed to advertise their £30k a year claims - the fact is YOU CAN EARN £30K/YEAR AS A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR.

The thing is - you can earn £30k/year as a toilet cleaner. You can earn £30k/year as a street scene operative (bin person!). You can earn £30k/year as a nocternal ambient replenishment operative (night shift shelf stacker). It's just that in all of these circumstances you know that you are going to have to work your way up, and put the hours in.

Driving Instruction is no different - get used to it.

Sorry guys - not in the mood for whingeing this week.

Cold Callers - the fools!

2007-07-16T12:44:00.000+01:00

Yep, they're at it again - Ufindus' parent company Iomart have asked all of their oh so pleasant cold calling people to phone up all of us poor independent driving instructors - but they're now operating under the name of "customer street".

Don't be fooled - this is the same pleasant and polite (not) people who constantly hastle us under the old Ufindus name. Don't be fooled.

Couple of hints for dealing with cold callers - make them work for their money - say as little as possible, tell them you've never heard of them, and generally be quite "off" - you will soon find the nasty beggars start getting shirty with you.

Then try to sell them driving lessons - really hard sell, really really hard sell, or fleet, or advanced, what about pass plus, but have you considered the insurance savings, or eco-driving because the cost savings will be huge over the course of the year, what is your budget for driver training this year sir, oh, don't you know that if you use a car then you must comply with health and safety regulations - how do you get to work? this could be construed as driving on business, do your employers know? don't they offer you training, and WHY ARE YOU PHONING ME ON A LINE THAT IS INTENDED FOR MY CUSTOMERS TO CONTACT ME. IF YOU ARE NOT A CUSTOMER - YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU GET YOU FOOLISH LITTLE PEOPLE. IF I WANT YOUR SERVICES I WILL PHONE YOU UP OR SEARCH FOR YOU ON THE INTERNET.

If you are as good as you suggest you are on the phone - I'll be able to find you easily enough, won't I?!!!!

PS: if anyone tries to sell you advertising linked to fire, police, or ambulance service charities - it is most likely a con. Put the phone down.

Driving Test Nerves

2007-07-04T11:23:00.000+01:00

It's all too easy to forget exactly how these feel if you don't take regular tests and exams yourself.

I sometimes get a little annoyed when I see them start to get flustered, but I soon remind myself that I'm the same - however much I wish I could take my own advice!

Last "test" I was on I came within 1 minor of failing in the first 3 minutes. I had to really give myself a shake, and sure enough - didn't make another mistake at all. It's all to do with controlling how your brain works.

Not easy, but interesting - has anyone got any suggestions of books for overcoming test nerves that I can suggest to customers?

What's to be done?

2007-06-27T14:34:00.000+01:00

Well, driver training in all it's forms are a bit of a mess.

Learners can be taught by ADIs or trainees with very little training, or their mates.

FLH can receive training from anyone.

Companies can receive driving advice from risk assessors (with little or no driving qualifications).

Driving Experience days seem to be above the law, allowing people to drive high powered cars around race tracks or 4x4's over the fells with little or no driver training or instructional experience.

ADIs and PDIs can be trained by ADIs with nothing more than a 3 second wait after passing their part 3.

Police can be trained by police.

Ambulance drivers can be trained by ambulance drivers.

The only regulation seems to be that if you want to earn money, teaching learners, you have to be an ADI.

Now I know the law spreads over the whole of the above, with certain restrictions and allowances, but surely there should be a blanket qualification which ALL driver trainers should reach. So suggestion time:

To train FLH for normal/advanced/business driving:

Advanced Test passed (not one of the independent ones - a government approved one, like the part 2)
Instructional Techniques Course passed
Risk Assessment Course (on road) passed

To train FLH for specific purpose (experience days):

Specific purpose driving test passed (specific to the experience)
Instructional Techniques Course passed
Risk Assessment Course (specific purposes) passed

To train Learners:

Advanced Test passed
Instructional Techniques Course passed
Risk Assessment Course (learners) passed
Counselling/coaching techniques Course passed

To train Response drivers:

Response driving experience verified/Test passed
Instructional Techniques Course passed
Risk Assessment Course (response) passed

To train Trainers:

Appropriate driving skills courses passed to high standard
Instructional Techniques Course Passed
Train The Trainer Course passed
Risk Assessment (for purpose) passed
Counselling/Coaching Course passed

I'm sure we could all think up more, and until then, we can ponder which of the two main systems of car control we should be concentrating on, or whether we should integrate them - MSM/PSL, or IPSGA?

Reasons for not driving an automatic

2007-06-26T19:37:00.000+01:00

Well, it's what the Americans do isn't it? Isn't that a good enough reason? Not really.

There's a lot of anti auto snobbery in Britain (and Europe to some extent), and I'm not sure where it stems from. There seems to be a feeling that you're not a "proper" driver unless you use a stick shift.

Though obviously being able to drive both well is an advantage - how many people do you know who really can drive a manual to a really good standard?

Not many.

Being able to concentrate so much more on the road has to be a safer way of going - maybe we should suggest this in our fleet risk assessments? Lets face it - with all the hybrids being developed, we'll all be driving them within a decade, and it'll only be old colonel Smotherington who's stuck with his outdated slow 2007 Jag who won't change!

Just a thought - and maybe a gap in the market for those who want to keep one step ahead!

....and it takes about half as long to learn - therefore only costs half as much!

Why worry about Driving Test fraud?

2007-06-24T10:35:00.000+01:00

So, around 10,000 people have got driving licences by fraudulent means - should we really be worried?

Well yes, obviously, but isn't it slightly more important that 400,000 people (40 times as many) are driving around with no insurance?

And what about all the people who drive around having never passed a test in the first place?

How many of those new drivers who have been banned under the 6 point scheme are still driving?

Don't look to me for answers though, you wouldn't like the suggestions.

Oh all right then, you twisted my arm!

Immediate removal of the vehicle if uninsured or driven illegally - only releaseable on a legal driver turning up with 20% of the cost of the car as a release fee or it gets sold - use the proceeds to pay more police. (I know the problems with this, but don't rightly care - more police please, with more powers to take cars off the road)
Insurance disc should be shown on windscreen.
Drivers should have to display their driver's licence in the windscreen like Driving Instructors do.

Instructors and mobile phones

2007-06-19T16:05:00.000+01:00

Yep, one of the bugbears that really gets me.

Would you want to learn to drive with someone who broke driving law consistently?

Would you want to learn to drive with someone who answered their phone while driving - even though it has been shown to be more dangerous than being over the drink-driving limit?

Well why would you call an instructor who only advertised his mobile number then?

There are 2 guys near me who are consistently on the phone while driving (despite the laws, the warnings and the sheer stupidity of it), and both of them only advertise themselves using their mobile numbers.

Dim or what?

If you want a driving instructor - don't phone one who doesn't have a land line number.

Driving Instructors who only advertise their mobile numbers

2007-06-18T16:00:00.000+01:00

Why do they do this? We're not allowed to answer the things while we work, so why not put a landline number down? You can access messages just as well through this as you can on the mobile

Fleet Driver Training & Driving for Work

2007-06-17T08:39:00.001+01:00

Talking to someone who has done the research the other day, I found out that in the public sector alone, 35% of fleet drivers have never received any driver training.

This is slightly worrying - if the public sector has this many un-trained drivers, what the heck is happening in the private sector? We know that the average white van man gets little or no training, in part because many of them work for themselves so have to keep their costs down, but there must be millions of people who drive during the course of their work who simply do not know about their responsibilities.

Are there still fleet managers and company directors who don't know about them? I suspect so. Any other specialist machinery (often with risk factors well below driving) nearly always comes with a requirement to undertake specialist training - and keep this training current. Can you imagine a chainsaw operator trained 25 years ago not having any further training?

In many situations there is a legal requirement that if something is done for a job, the qualification must be "refreshed" in some way every year or five - simply in order to continue working.

So just a suggestion - maybe the driving test should only qualify someone to drive for personal use. If you need to drive at work you should have to gain a new qualification and keep up with new regulations and prove your continued high standard every few years?

Or maybe I'm just saying that coz I'd earn more?!

Driving Instructor Road Rage

2007-06-09T10:43:00.000+01:00

As a driving instructor - you're on the road for anything up to 12 hours a day - you see some stupid stuff going on.

So when can you legitimately lose your temper with other drivers?

When they cut you up? When they don't signal? When they beep your pup for taking all of .00006 seconds too long to set off from the traffic lights?

The answer is never.

We all know this, but after a long week when you're struggling and can almost see the skills you're working on sinking in - that w*nker in the 4x4 who honks, overtakes and shouts out his window can just tip you over the edge.

I've seen some pretty silly reactions from instructors too. One instructor forced the tailgater to run into him by braking (I know, I know, but hell I laughed!), one instructor I know has the most imaginative hand gestures for everyone around him, and another one leans around his seat and films them with his mobile and sends it to the police.

All of these are satisfying solutions to the problem, but they all have one thing in common - they all lose customers to me.

Yep - if there's one way of really freaking your pups out it's not staying calm.

Prove to everyone that you're better than they are - rise above it.

What should the average price of driving lessons be?

2007-06-02T09:44:00.000+01:00

Well after another of my straw polls (quick search of the internet, and the forums), I reckon the cheapest you can get a driving lesson for is about £15 an hour. There's a couple of discounts involved in that price, but it's still too low.

And the most expensive? Outside London - £25/hour seems to be the highest I've found that isn't actually specialist training.

Something I've asked about before is why this is so low? We pay more for our kids to learn the guitar - and how high are the overheads on that?

So what has happened? Well the problem has always been that people can teach their own kids to drive - so why should they pay anyone else to? I can't play the guitar, so I can't teach my kids, but I can drive - and how hard can it be?

Well the problem with that logic is that playing the guitar badly can't kill your kids! (It might make you want to kill yourself, but that's another issue)

So what can we do to get the price back in line with reality, well, we could encourage the government to restrict personal freedom even more and insist that everyone goes takes professional lessons with an ADI (not keen personally). We could encourage some of the examiners who want to insist on tests being taken in dual control cars (but people can hire them for about £10 an hour).

Or we could make people aware of what it is we do, and we could encourage the DSA to grade instructors more transparently. We could work to make people understand exactly what they are paying for, and we could encourage people recognise the advantages of choosing an instructor who has experience, qualifications and skills relevant to what they want to learn.

A couple of relevant qualifications might be useful - maybe the DIA could run them as CPD courses, with easily recognisable certification:

Certified Confidence Builder - trained in specific techniques to help nervous learners
Certified Mature Driver Trainer - trained in specific techniques to help mature learners
Certified Aspergers/Dispraxic Trainer etc - trained in techniques specific to certain disabilities which should be no barrier to learning to drive.
Certified Language Trainer - able to train those whose first language is not English eg: Punjabi, Polish or even British Sign Language.

I'm sure some of you will be able to think up your own.

Wouldn't that be better than simply putting Dip DI (great course, but what exactly does it mean to the customers guys?) after your name.

How can we sharpen the DSA's teeth?

2007-05-29T23:14:00.001+01:00

The driver training industry is full of contradictions. (Just look on the forums, or as 3 driving instructors how to reverse park, or 3 ADI trainers whether you can pass a cyclist on the zigzag lines approaching a pedestrian crossing!)

One of the biggest of these is how Driving Instructors feel about the DSA.

On one hand we complain that they do nothing about Instructor Training companies who promise seemingly impossible rewards, but then complain that the part 3 exam has too low a pass rate!

So the question has to be asked - how can we help the DSA sharpen it's teeth, without having it bite us?

One suggestion could be to encourage the ORDIT scheme to become mandatory, not just for companies, but for every individual ADI who is paid to provide ADI training.

Another is to ensure that ADI's who break the Code of Practice can be check tested and put on probation until they prove that they are able to follow the code.

Another suggestion could be that all ADI's must follow a progressive CPD program which ensures that the public understand what level of experience an ADI has, and what they are paying for.

But when would those teeth start to draw blood? Would one complaint from a disgruntled customer put an ADI's career (and income, house and possibly marraige) at risk?

Would a new entrant to the business be able to gain work when competing with less enthusiastic or less ambitious ADI's who have simply been in the industry longer?

Would an ADI trainer be able to get through ORDIT without help from a potential competitor?

Where should the lines be drawn?

Personally I think there are far too many of us who complain about the DSA, without understanding why they exist. They exist in the main to ensure that those on the road are capable of driving safely - all the rest of it is simply politics.

All ADI trainers should be on ORDIT, but the regulations should be made simpler, with step by step assessment of their capabilities - for each assessment (and it's attendant cost) they should gain part of their accreditation.

All ADIs should have to accept and stick to the Code of Practice, but the complaints procedure must be made as open and accountable as possible allowing each party to put their view before action is taken.

All ADIs should have to follow a CPD program which follows a clear path (or paths) allowing (and enabling) instructors to work towards their own goals.

And don't even get me started on franchise agreements and their use and abuse - from both sides of the contract.

How long does it take to earn £30k as a Driving Instructor?

2007-05-24T08:48:00.000+01:00

Just a quick on here - if you're one of those who does actually want to earn the £30k I've done a quick straw poll.

Only 10% of driving instructors will ever reach that magical figure.

Bearing in mind that more than 60% of driving instructors are working 6 or 7 day weeks - it's going to be a long hard slog to get there - but it is possible!

Of the instructors I have spoken to - they reached the £30k figure after serious work for about 5 years.

In their first year 80% of them made a loss from driving instruction - once training fees had been figured in.

In their second year, they felt that they probably worked 60+ hours a week for less than the minimum wage.

In their third year the average seems to have been around £12k for a lot of work. These instructors all continued taking further qualifications. None of them sat back with their green badge.

In their fourth year they earnt over £20k, and worked hard on reducing their costs and increasing their business skills.

In the fifth year they hit the £30k. They reckon they worked about 65 hours/week including travelling between training sessions. An hourly wage of around £8.87.

Only one of them relies purely on training learners.

Just thought you might like to know.

Will all check tests soon be roleplay?

2007-05-21T12:20:00.000+01:00

Going purely on rumour again guys - you know me, never let a lack of facts get in the way of a good story - but there's suggestions that the check test is moving towards a purely roleplay format.

Now I'm normally here defending the DSA, but on this one I won't be.

There are various reasons why the roleplay could be useful to both ourselves and the DSA. It introduces a set format with a simply examined structure, allowing for much more standardised gradings for instructors. It also reduces the problems with instructors "prepping" their check test pup.

However, many of the examiners have never been driving instructors, and at best their experience of how learners react is limited to their experience on tests. This means that the mistakes they make during check tests are often un-realistic and do not follow the pattern that we see on a day to day basis.

It also takes no account of the work we do with individual pups, with regards to problems and weaknesses outside the knowledge & skills area. Some attitude is tested, but in comparison to the amount of work some of us do with nervous or disabled customers it is woefully inadequate in assessing this, and often actually causes good specialist instructors to be graded lower than they deserve. The examiners often misunderstand how we work to teach people in the way that they learn, rather than in the way the DSA would rather we teach.

Unlike some instructors I feel that a great instructor would not fail a roleplay checktest, and a good one should at least be able to achieve a grade 4 - so no-one's livelihood is at risk. The problem occurs when we look to each other for help - we understand the gradings, and will often take them as read. Unfortunately this means that some of the finest specialist trainers are penalised within the industry because the DSA do not understand the complexities of their chosen speciality.

Driving Me Crazy - John Sargeant on 4x4's

2007-05-15T00:25:00.000+01:00

Oh, I know that ITV can't do serious programming and that their target audience has an IQ of less than 83, but at least they tried!!

One thing that did get me thinking though was the difference in the driving once they changed from their tanks into normal cars. I've noticed this before, especially with women (sorry guys, but....!) who drive 4x4's and actually feel very vulnerable when brought down to a normal level.

Now unless we are to have an arms race on car sizes, something is going to have to happen. Once it has happened (probably with taxation, because it's the only language that fashion victims understand, until we can convince them that smaller cars are less "thick" than 4x4's or any other gas guzzlers) there will be a huge demand for defensive driving courses in order to stop people feeling nervous in smaller cars!

So sign up for my new course:

Newly divorced from your 4x4?
Was it a painful split?
Left feeling nervous and unconfident about your new car relationship?
Let the Undercover ADI renew your driving confidence!
Regain the ability to be polite to other drivers, regain the ability to understand how other road users react, regain the ability to feel comfortable driving your car!

We guarantee that we will actually save you TEN TIMES the cost of your course within 1 year of taking it.
How?
Fuel savings of up to £800/year based on changing from a petrol 4x4 to a diesel small car.
Tax savings of over £100/year, not including reduced parking and congestion charges for those based in London
Car savings of up to and over £20,000 on your new, smaller car!!!!

Who could resist?

Stupid people - AGAIN!!!!

2007-05-10T23:58:00.000+01:00

This is becoming a theme!

Just saw a link to this on one of the forums so I couldn't resist posting on it!

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=2980.0

Unfortunately this shows the attitudes that we have to put up with.

More intensive driving course enquiries!

2007-05-10T20:15:00.000+01:00

Yep. Even more.

I've run low on trainee instructors at the minute, and I keep getting enquiries for intensive driving courses, so I've started wondering - should I take some of them on?

There's a few who've got a straight no - the guy who started the phone conversation with:

"'ow much're ya lessons mate?"
"Cnaye ave a coupla lessons 'n do me test on tuesdy?"

and the young lady who informed me:

"ahv bin dryvin wiv me da, an 'e sez ahm ohkay"

but there have been another couple who've actually been able to string a coherent sentence together, like the lad who's off to join the army and wants to learn in the next 6 weeks but can only get one week off work.

Then there's the girl who has booked her test, and has given me a very sensible and reasonable account of her previously failed test (complete with emailed DL25), who wants about 10 hours before next tuesday.

And I'm in a quandary.

I HATE doing intensives, but there's loads of cash in them.

I find that people who do intensives tend to be terrible drivers because humans forget everything at a rate commensurate with the rate they learnt it (I think we all understand this one from cramming for exams, then 2 weeks into the summer hols we haven't got a clue what we did).

I find myself wondering why these people cannot organise their lives properly so that they don't need to do an intensive.

And finally, I don't like not having the flexibility to decide for myself when they will be ready. I know this is selfish, I know this is a failing in my confidence, I know this is a failing in my conviction.

But I bet those of you who do intensives have the same feelings sometimes.

And still the main question remains - do I take the cash and work, or do I sit here and lurk in the forums?!!!

The demise of intelligence!

2007-05-09T14:47:00.000+01:00

I keep getting phone calls at the moment asking how much my lessons are.

No real problem until I ask where they found out about me, at which point they tell me that they got my number off my website. The funny thing is - my prices are on every page of my website.

Then there's the ones who presume that I'll be able to fit them in immediately, whenever they want, forgetting that I have other customers and a life to accomodate. Then they go all quiet as they realise that it's not quite as easy as they presumed it would be.

It is at this point that I wonder whether I actually want to take on someone whose life so obviously revolves around themselves.

A good driving instructor will try to accomodate customers as well as is possible, but there are limits, and the ones who get a bit annoyed that you can't fit them in will be the same ones who will cancel when they want, and expect you to put them in for test before they are ready.

Anything for a quiet life - I leave them well alone.

Aaaaaggggghhhhhh!

2007-05-04T22:54:00.000+01:00

I've just been speaking to yet another trainee instructor who's been let down by their training company. I won't mention this one because they are a bit litigious apparently, but at least 2 of the "good guys" have worked for them at 1 point or another and left because of the way the company treated their trainees.

This one apparently isn't going to receive any more training because they are now costing the company money. The training was offered as a set fee with a guarantee to pass. Now this trainee doesn't lack get up and go - they're proactive (sorry, I'll make up a buzzword bingo card one of these days, but it's the best word to describe them) and well informed, but because of a combination of nerves and frickin awful training they haven't passed their part 3 yet.

And now they're getting the run around from their company who haven't actually said they can't give them more training, but serious hints have been dropped.

Now should this trainee go back to the company and just bully them into providing what has been paid for, or should they run and get some decent training?

You decide.

Why are Police so soft on driving offences?

2007-04-29T14:48:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure of this - I'm wondering if any of you can help me?

It seems to me that motoring offences like driving without a licence, insurance, MOT and the like are reasonably clear cut and simple to prosecute. So why are people getting away with it so often?

I'm no fan of simplistic rules for how laws should be enforced, as life is bloody complicated, but I would've thought that being caught without any of the above should get a fine and endorsement. Getting caught twice should lead to a ban, and getting caught 3 times should lead to community service.

All drivers caught for other offenses like mobile phone use or speeding should have all of these things checked as a matter of course.

Many criminals use stolen or un-registered cars to carry out their business, and when caught seem not to be prosecuted for anything - often drugs found in cars cannot be linked to the driver or a passenger and so are hard to prosecute for, but the issues with the legality of the car are ignored! These should be simple to fix - any un-registered car found on the road should be impounded.

Insurance seems to be awkward to prove on a day to day basis, so surely we should have to carry proof of insurance with us, which could be easily verified. I know there are issues with the data protection act on this one, but it should not be beyond the imagination of a civilised culture to come up with a simple solution that could easily prove that people are insured.

No insurance - the car should be impounded until insurance is proved.

No license - immediate arrest, car should be impounded.

No MOT - car should be impounded.

With all of these impounds they should have to pay to have the car released - and if the car is not claimed within a certain period it should be sold to pay for the impound costs and to continue and increase the policing.

This is one of my less ranting posts (apologies to those who prefer the rants - I'll do one on how offenders should have to pay EVERY cost of their offence soon!), so I hope the principle may be considered.

Driving Lessons on Ufindus!!!!

2007-04-19T16:26:00.000+01:00

Well they're at it again (and I do hope they find this! (edit 19.06.07: they have found this - I tracked their IP! - Did they listen? Well I ain't had any calls since!!!)), they're calling anyone and everyone in an attempt to get themselves more business.

Not only do they call driving instructors on their mobile phones (I'll guarantee that these fools will drive and talk on them and won't understand why we won't), but they also use different phones all the time. They know that we block their calls, they know we don't want to talk to them, but still they call.

Now most of the time I don't get angry with people on the phone, because these poor morons aren't intelligent enough to question the morality of what they do, but I have started giving them aggro, with the idea that if enough people question the company that they work for, maybe they will too. Staff turnover might get these guys to change from a company that cold calls then charges a huge amount for a website you could make yourself for a fiver into a company that actually gives a good service, and stops calling when you ask them too.

So if they phone, what do you do? Well - I ask them how much they're paying me for my services - this really throws them! Then when they ask what I'm on about I tell them that the phone they have called me on is for customers to request my services - in the same way that when I want someones services I WILL PHONE THEM! Then I tell them that the call has been made to a telephone preference service registered number (unfortunately not applicable on the mobile yet - can you do this? I'm sure someone will email me with the answer) and that I will report them.

Then I ask to speak to their manager, and if they refuse, I ask why they work for a company when they can't even hand over the awkward customers to the manager?! Do they not give you the back up that you deserve? I bet the pay is pretty terrible when you could be earning a real living dealing with people who actually WANT your services.

And if they haven't given up and put the phone down I ask them why they would want to work for a company that so many people hate, and suggest they do a search on the office internet about Ufindus and find out how many people despise them.

Then I suggest they find a job that actually gives them some satisfaction and suggest they become a driving instructor - did you know you can earn £30,000 a year, have a new fully maintained car, and work flexible hours - interested?!!!!

The Retests are Coming!

2007-04-15T00:31:00.000+01:00

Well, for bus & truck drivers they are anyway. Recent changes to the system mean that these drivers will probably have to retake their test every 5 years.

Many local authorities also expect cab drivers to do the same, and with schools and businesses often specifying that their employees may not drive on business until they have passed a driver assessment - how long can it take?

And it will never be too soon for the 3000 people who are killed on the roads every year.

It will never be too soon for the 28,000 people seriously injured, disabled and disfigured on britains roads every year.

£11.73 BILLION pounds is one of the estimated costs of bad driving every year.

That's £11,730,000,000 in real numbers. And to break that down into even more understandable figures, that's £586.50 for every driver.

And if you're not a driver - don't worry - you pay your share in taxes.

The worst bit is that many of these bad drivers don't pay a penny, because they aren't insured - and until they cause an accident, all they really risk is a small fine and a few points on their licence.

If anyone is listening - PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE.

Sorry guys - rant over.

How much does a driving instructor earn

2007-04-09T23:30:00.000+01:00

Another one without a simple answer, but I'll try.

Anywhere from £0 (or even a loss after training, car, franchise and other costs), to £30k and beyond.

£0 or a loss - work for a bad franchise who charge you a fortune then don't give you any customers. Work for yourself, but have no business sense, and a bit of bad luck (5 lessons for a fiver brigade opening up next door).

£30k - work like a sod for about 3 years. Train constantly to gain new qualifications. Have good business sense - or learn it. Work smart, keep customers, get a good reputation, but never slack on getting the word out.

Beyond? Start your own school, move up through the career ladder to ADI training and beyond. The owner of a 10 car school who trains all his ADIs should be able to earn around £1500 a week.

Tempted?

(for more info on this huge subject click on "driving instructor earnings" below.)

How much does it cost to train to be an instructor?

2007-04-09T23:17:00.000+01:00

I keep getting hits for this question - or something similar, so the answer is.........

anything between £0 and £6000.

And the £6000 doesn't guarantee you'll pass!

The free route - do loads of research yourself, be strict with your revision, know your subject, be a bloody good driver already, and be a good trainer/coach already. With the amount of info out there it is possible I reckon, though I suspect only in theory. The best thing would be to do the work, then get someone to check you're on the right track every now and again. I reckon realistically you could do it for about £500 if you were really determined. Bear in mind about £220 in test fees, and a hundred or so on books.

The expensive route - follow the adverts, let the sales people talk you into things, and trust them to do the right thing by you. Don't do your homework, and expect "them" to "teach" you. This will not work. "You" will have to "learn from" them.

The sensible middle ground - go and have a chat with one of the "good guys" in the panel on the right, or someone who's posts you trust in the forums. Find recommendations, and work with them. Don't expect anything to come to you, 'coz even with the good guys it won't happen. Go after it.

If you wind up paying more than £3k for the whole shebang you're probably paying too much.

Re-testing

2007-04-09T13:52:00.000+01:00

Will it ever happen?

Will the insurance companies introduce it through the back door?

Do us a favour - post your views under the comments below.

Too many new Driving Instructors?

2007-04-05T10:28:00.000+01:00

It's a commonly heard complaint in this industry, with people calling for the ADI register to be closed, training companies to be sued for mis-advertising and the like, and moaners on the forums from noon till night.

And yes, there's loads of the buggers around - I think I've seen 6 pink badges in my area recently, even though the local BSM office has shut down. There's a hundred and one new cars and new roofboxes around, and the local garages must be upping their stock of cheap and nasty cars for driving instructors. (Kia Picanto - eurgh!)

But they disappear again after 5 minutes! I'm gonna keep a list, and tick them off when I get a chance, and see how long they last. It seems no sooner than these guys get their green badge they disappear (obviously a good few disappear even before the green badge stage!).

The main reason seems to be not enough work. And I'm not sure why. Yes it's competetive, yes it's not regular, yes you have to do dodgy hours sometimes, BUT THAT'S WHAT IT'S LIKE WHEN YOU START YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

And we are all self employed! The business sense of some of these guys is great, but some of them seem clueless. One of the PDI's I spoke to in the test centre complained that he didn't have enough work because his recommendations were going to another PDI who had started with the company!!!!! GIVE 'EM YOUR OWN NUMBER!

Like I've said before - with a lot of work, and by vigorous rubbing together of braincells it is not too hard to make a living at this game. With a bit more work and brainpower (and some lateral thinking, training, and luck) the £30k is not out of reach given 3 years or so.

Does the Insurance Industry Care about young drivers?

2007-03-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

Doesn't seem like it.

Our lovely Mr Ladyman (no jokes please), has been answering some questions at the house of commons (and not answering others, but hell, he's a politician aint he?!).

One of the points which he was rightly concerned about was the death/serious injury rate of young drivers, including the fact that young men are 4 times more likely to kill themselves and others in their first year of driving than women.

He makes the point that though both sexes take the same test, the lads are nutters. Like we've said here before, it's not a case of passing the test, it's how they view driving - their attitude, that counts.

He also gives an opinion on the 6 points and you're banned scheme which has been running a while, and he feels that this is not effective. Now at first I thought - what? You must be joking - ban 'em and they'll learn their lesson, but of course they don't. Half of them never re-apply for their test - are we to assume that these people give up driving? Or do we reckon that a lot of them go on to drive illegally, without insurance, tax, and breaking the law in any way they feel? I suspect this is often the case, and will concede the point to Mr Ladyman - expect the law to change on this one sometime (don't expect soon though!).

One problem he does have is that just out of reach, he can see a huge quantity of information which could help him to work out the best course of action for making Britain's roads safer. Unfortunately, due to "commercial privacy" he can't get his hands on it. What are the insurance industry thinking? Do they care at all? It seems not.

With the help of this information, we might be able to make sensible, informed decisions on how to improve driver training. Without it - our insurance premiums stay high, young drivers keep on killing themselves and their girlfriends, but heck, at least the insurance companies get to keep their market share.

Read the transcript here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmtran/uc355-iii/uc35502.htm
(if you've got the patience - it's dull, but has some interesting facts in it)

ORDIT - What does it really mean?

2007-03-25T20:51:00.000+01:00

Driving Instructor Training is an interesting business, because to do it all you need is to be an ADI.

Curious eh? Imagine this going down the line - as soon as someone had passed their driving test, they could advertise themselves as driving instructors!!

But surely there's some kind of exam that proves your trainer is good? Well.......ORDIT kinda does this.

The Official Register of Driving Instructor Trainers (the full title), is not essential, but the DSA reckon it will give some kind of "accountability" to the business. A business that has suffered a bit through unscrupulous types trying to make a buck out of people who wanna become driving instructors. This accountability largely entails having a clear refund policy ("we don't give refunds" is about as clear as you need to be for this), and some kind of complaints procedure ("write to the DSA at.......if you don't like what you got" is about as procedural as it needs to be).

So you can see why people aren't keen.

But......and it's an important one, the trainer who is on the register will have been assessed by an examiner as being competant at their job. This can be important, in the same way as the difference between being a trainee instructor (PDI) and qualified driving instructor (ADI) is pretty important. It means that at the very least - on the day - for 1 hour - in the eyes of the examiner - the trainer was giving ok instruction.

Does this mean that all trainers on ORDIT are good? No. In the same way that not all ADIs are any good, just that they are CAPABLE of being good.

Does this mean that all trainers who aren't on ORDIT don't have all these policies in place? No. But if they don't you can't complain.

So where do we go next? Well there are rumours that ORDIT will be mandatory soon, which is no bad thing - it will at least get rid of the REALLY shady operators out there, and it will make sure that if there are problems with a trainer then there's someone to complain to. (If you reckon the DSA can or will actually do anything about dodgy trainers.......!)

So if you are thinking of becoming a driving instructor - look around for trainers, and ask them what they are doing about ORDIT. If they aren't on it - find out why not. If they tell you it's rubbish - beware - this is the excuse of the cowboy.

If they ARE on ORDIT, don't relax - this doesn't mean they will be good. Meet your trainer, ask for their qualifications. Don't hand over ANY cash before your first training session, apart from payment for that session. Go to the forums and do the research - it'll pay you back a fortune.

I'm not sure what a legit reason for not being on ORDIT would be - if you can come up with one - comment at the end of this article!

Why don't people take refresher lessons?

2007-03-24T01:43:00.000Z

There's enough people out there who need to!

But seriously, when talking to people, reading the forums, or simply watching people driving on the roads, you can see people really having trouble driving.

BUT THEY WON'T ASK FOR HELP!

And I don't understand why. Most of the things they have trouble with are simple to fix, like moving off on a hill, or parking in a bay - we could solve this in an hour if you wanted us to - 1 hour to solve that problem that stresses you out every time you get in a car! SO WHY DON'T YOU SOLVE IT!

Even more complex things - solving nerves, driving without stress, even reverse parking! We can help with all of these, but no - you'd rather stress yourself out and risk your own or someone else's death than ask for help. And all because "I've already passed my test". Well I've already had central heating installed - BUT IF IT DOESN'T WORK I'LL CALL A FRICKIN PLUMBER!

I'm not proud.

Is it pride, or selfishness. We get in that steel box and we feel that we are in charge, and admitting that actually we aren't in as much charge as we'd like is hard, but taking the central heating analogy again - i'm in control - I can change the temperature, and I can set it to come on when I want it to, but if it starts leaking water (or worse still Carbon Monoxide), I WILL call that plumber. I won't risk damage to my property or anyone else's, and I WILL NOT RISK MY LIFE OR THOSE OF MY FAMILY. And if I won't risk the life of my family - what gives you the right to.

(Oh yeah, and why is it that nervous drivers buy 4x4's instead of taking a few refresher lessons? Surely an extra £10 grand for a car is taking pride a bit too far. And it just means that they are more likely to kill the child they hit, because the bumper hits their hip and breaks it rather than their leg. Luckily, drivers of 4x4's are slightly more likely to die in an accident than normal car drivers. Maybe we could replace airbags in gas guzzlers (anything with an mpg less than 35, not just 4x4's) with large metal spikes that fire out through people's brains when they crash. Maybe then they'd stop talking on their phones.)

Can you tell I've had a hard week?!

Borrowing an instructors car for test

2007-03-17T22:50:00.000Z

This is how the fone call usually goes:

"Hello, my son's got a test booked for tuesday and I was wondering if he could use your car?"

"Well I don't usually just let people use my car, I'd like to know if he can drive first."

"Well he's been with an instructor for months, but he won't let him use his car."

"Why not?

"He says he's not ready, but he's had 20 lessons."

"If he's not ready, then he needs more lessons."

"But he's a good driver, he drives my car all the time."

"He could do the test in your car then."

"But what if he crashes it?"

"If he stands a chance of crashing a car, then he's not ready for his test. And if you have that little confidence in him, why should I let him loose in the most important tool I have, knowing that if he crashes it, I am out of a job until it is fixed?"

"Oh, right. So you won't take him?"

"No."

Why do people do this? Why do people think that they can fail a test and not take any more lessons before taking another? Why do people think that proving that you are capable of the MINIMUM SAFE STANDARD OF DRIVING is something you can just have a go at?

Is there any chance we can blindfold these parents then ask them to sit in the car with their kids who are so good at driving for a week before they are allowed their licence? And if their parents don't agree to this, could we tell them they need more lessons?

"But he's had 20 already......."

Guaranteed or Instant Driving Test Pass

2007-03-11T17:26:00.000Z

RUBBISH! There are lots of these kind of adverts around for "Pass your test in 5 days" or "guaranteed driving test pass", and you really have to wonder what kind of fool falls for them.

Could you expect anyone to be able to guarantee this? Is anyone actually stupid enough to think that with just 5 days of training they will be able to safely throw a tonne of steel around at speeds up to 70mph?

Why do people want this kind of instant gratification? Why to people want 'guarantees' for something that can so easily lead to the death of yourself, your kids, your loved ones, and innocent bystanders?

Intensive driving courses (from no experience to test) are notoriously unsuccessful (though you have to be very careful when reading the small print for them). There are a few instructors around who run 'semi-intensive' courses, which involve around 10 hours per week for maybe 4 weeks, and these can be very successful. But what makes people think that they can do a residential intensive driving course in Blackpool, when they have never been to the town before, do 40 hours in a car, then take their test (very often nowhere near Blackpool btw, and on roads they may never have seen before), and expect to pass?

Wake up people. Take driving seriously - this is not a game. Invest for the rest of your life, and don't expect it on a plate, or some of these shady operators will take your money, and hand you nothing in return.

Caught on Camera on your Mobile Phone!

2007-03-10T12:52:00.000Z

This is just a warning to all of those people who think that driving around with a mobile phone clamped to their ear is a sensible thing to do - DRIVING INSTRUCTORS HAVE GOT YOU NICKED!

There's been a little research done into this, and all seems good!

In any one learner car at any one time there are usually 2 people - or shall we call them 'witnesses'.

In many learner cars, there are cameras - we use them for training purposes, and they often have cameras facing forwards, and backwards.

So if you like using your phone while driving, beware next time you are in front of, or behind a learner car, because we have been informed that if we supply video of you doing it, with the 2 witness statements confirming this to the police - you can be nicked!

3 points and a £60 fine coming your way guys - and there's a lot more learner cars around than police cars. And believe me, we WILL be doing this!

Be afraid - be very afraid!

Or just stop being a danger to yourself and everyone around you, you selfish fool.

The Instructor College Con?

2007-03-04T12:59:00.000Z

This keeps coming back!!!

Are their adverts intentionally misleading? Possibly.
Are their adverts lies? No.
Is it possible to earn £30k as soon as you qualify? No, but they don't say you can.
Is it possible to earn £30k as a driving instructor? Yes.
Is it possible to earn £30k and work flexibly? Yes, as long as the flexibility you're thinking about is yours towards your customers, not the other way around.

Do The Instructor College TV ads give the wrong impression to people? Yes.

On the forums there are hundreds of accounts of people who feel that they have been misled by these adverts and promises. However, there are other driving instructor training courses who do similar things. Guaranteed placements or franchises sound like guaranteed 'Jobs', but they aren't. There are other careers entirely which seem to offer huge rewards - take sales - we've all seen the adverts that specify 'On Target Earnings of.....', and we take those with a large dose of salt. Why are people so taken in by these adverts tho?

Possibly because it all seems so plausible. People look at how much driving instructors charge (£22/hour say), and then simply multiply that by 40 hours. Unfortunately this simplistic view of things can easily over-ride the reality.

So should we be taken in? No. Should we sue them? No. Are they doing something underhand and sneaky? Possibly. Should we have sympathy for people who are taken in? Probably. Should everything we see and hear on TV adverts be taken as gospel truth? Only if you are really stupid. Sorry guys.

Do the research. Go to the Driving Instructor Forums. Read as much as you can about REAL driving instructor stories. Don't hand over a penny until you know what you are getting. And try to pay as you go. That way you can walk away.

'ees not worf it!!! leave it, ee's not worf it!

2007-03-03T18:43:00.000Z

There's been fun on the forums this week (I've been lurking again), and people have been chucking their toys out of the pram.

Problem is, the guys who've left have been the good ones. Well I've got one question:

WHY THE F*CK DO WE ALWAYS GIVE IN TO THE W*NKERS!

There's a few people on forums who seem only to be there to make people feel like sh*t. Which kinda says a lot about how they feel about themselves, but it has meant that the forums have lost some great contributors.

STAND UP TO THEM.

There is no other sphere of life where we would let them get away with it, so stand tall, tell it like it is, take the flak, and wait for the weak and stupid to crack and get personal.

As soon as they get personal, the moderators and admin can get rid of them straight away.

Now I don't sign petitions, I don't chuck my views about in the forums, cos I know that they could easily be taken out of context - which is why they're here. But I do feel that there are 2 kinds of people in the world:
Nice people, sometimes mistaken, sometimes misunderstood, but always stood up for.
and W*nkers - who need standing up to.

To those who've sussed me......

2007-03-01T21:27:00.000Z

....say nuffin'. (please).

If you wanna complain - feel free. If you want me to remove a link, no problem.

Fanks.

undercoveradi@hotmail.co.uk

Traffic Police

2007-03-01T17:16:00.000Z

New York used to have a terrible problem with crime. It is widely believed that Rude old Giuliani fixed this with interesting, novel and intelligent schemes.

Cr*p. It was the fact that the guy who ran the place before him put loads more police on the streets. (Look it up - the economist Steven Levitt goes through all of this in 'Freakonomics')

Now I'm all for good ideas, progress and all that, but there is no frickin substitute for people thinking that if they drive like w*nkers then they'll get caught. Take the mobile fone thing - there is no way in hell this will change until everyone on them starts getting caught, fined and pointed. We have the same problem with speeding - slow down for 50 yards beyond the camera, then back to normal.

Average speed cameras may help. Cameras with technology to recognise whether someone is on the fone may help, but I don't think there are cameras which can recognise the guy who cuts you up, and there are many areas without any cameras at all.

When people know that they can't get away with something, they don't try.

Maybe someone should start counting the cost of poor driving across all factors:
Excess fuel use
Environmental impact
Stress, and stress related illness
Insurance increases
Accidents
Injuries
Police and emergency service response to accidents and injuries
Time off work through injury and stress

Then maybe we could weigh all of those up against the preventative costs of having a few more coppers around in brightly coloured cars.

Not enough work for Driving Instructors

2007-02-28T11:36:00.000Z

Yep, some of you guessed it - I've got too much time on my hands.

I could blame all the trainees coming in from the pink factories like TIC, on a promise of £30k a year and a fully maintained car.

I could blame all the parents, for trying to skimp on good training for little Alfie, who are trying to teach him themselves.

I could blame the DSA, for making me take time from my amazingly effective marketting campaign to do the HPT.

I could blame everyone but myself. But I won't.

There is work out there. There are people who need my services, all I've got to do is get off my (overly large) behind and find them, entice them in with my skills and qualifications, promise them independence and a highly paid job once they pass. But I don't want to. I'm tired and I need a break, so I'm having one!

If you want an opinion (why are you here if you don't?) then yes, there are too many instructors for the available learners. But learners aren't the only people who need training. There's other instructors, there's fleet drivers, there's banned drivers, there's drivers who want to avoid getting points after being caught speeding. There's new drivers who need pass plus for insurance, or confidence and help with new areas or motorways. There's young drivers who need to know how not to kill themselves on country roads. There's police drivers, army drivers, ambulance and fire service drivers.

Look at the roads - who do you think needs driver training!!!!

So, to the whingers - I say get off your (probably also overly large) a$$e$ and start tapping into these markets. Don't sit there complaining about bad driving - do something about it. That's your chosen job.

Aphorism of the Day

2007-02-27T10:17:00.000Z

Stop using your frickin phone, you selfish, arrogant git.

I think that says everything dunnit?

Who should become a driving instructor?

2007-02-24T12:08:00.000Z

There's a suggestion that is doing the rounds at the mo about potential driving instructors having to be attitude tested before they go through the system. So I wondered who should become an ADI?

People see this job as a retirement job, or as an easy part-time career while bringing up kids. Many people just wanna escape from a job they hate, and they see the ads on the telly. It seems like an easy option - lets face it - everyone can drive, that gives you a head start straight away doesn't it?

To be honest - no. The best drivers often make the worst driving instructors. They have very little patience with learners because they can't understand why it is taking people so long to get to grips with everything.

The job is a teaching job primarily, with a bit of social work, a bit of confidence building, and a lot of life coaching (albeit targetted towards the one goal of becoming a driver).

The driving is a very small part of it, and a part that anyone who already drives can pick up pretty quickly by just analysing exactly what they do.

Good drivers do a lot of stuff without even thinking about it. This is where the problem occurs - which is one of the reasons that people driving with their mum or dad wind up getting frustrated and shouty about stuff. The 'why the f*ck didn't you stop?!' question becomes interesting when you get the answer 'cos you didn't f*cking tell me to!'.

If you try to write down every step of something you do every day (making a cup of tea for example), then imagine an alien reading through the steps and you start to find the problem:

Put teabag in cup - 'cup', what is this earth thing you call a 'cup'?
Pour in boiled water - from where do you get this 'boiled water'?
Let it steep for 20 seconds - where is the angle upon which I can make the cup full of boiled water 'steep', without it falling over and burning AHHH, I'M MELTING.......!

You will need to be precise:
Open 'top cupboard', get out the 'cups' (point to cupboard and cups).
Fill the 'kettle' with water from the 'tap'.
Replace the kettle and switch it on (point to switch).
Open other cupboard, get out 'tea bags'.

Are you getting the picture yet?

So back to the original question - who should become a driving instructor?
Sales people who have had to explain technical details of a product in simple terms are good.
Coaches and teachers are usually good.
Social workers tend to be good.
Communicators - of all types.

If you aren't sure if you're gonna be any good - try teaching someone to do your job, or to do one of your responsibilities around the house. If you get frustrated - work out why, and explain it better.

If you still get frustrated - find a different career.

Driving Instructor Training Costs

2007-02-22T14:54:00.000Z

A common question for all trainers is 'how much is the training going to cost?'.

The answer is usually around £3,000, sometimes less, sometimes more. Unfortunately that is not a full answer. That answer is purely how much you are going to pay for your training.

There are other things you might wanna think about.

How much overtime do you do now, that you would have to miss because of your training?

How much will you need to spend travelling to and from your training?

How much will you need to spend on books, exams, and your own practise?

Once qualified, how much will you need to spend on advertising in order to get customers?

Once qualified, how much will you need to spend on a car for the job?

Once qualified, can you afford to stop work while you build your business up?

How much less will you earn during the time you are building up your business?

How much will you need to spend on stationery, computer, business cards, flyers and uniform?

How much will you lose once self employed from the lack of holiday/sick pay/pension/health insurance benefits from your current job?

How much will you have to spend on continued training to fulfill the CPD?

Dont' wanna scare anyone off here, just don't jump into this with your eyes closed.
Good luck.

Suggestion for New Driver Insurance

2007-02-21T20:51:00.000Z

As we all know, new drivers are the highest risk group on the road. What can we do to change their attitudes?

Well this is just a quick one, no long explanations or twisted logic.

When someone insures a car for the first time, give them the following info:

Quote - for this year.

Quote - for next year without claims, or points.

Quote - for next year with points (3 or 6 and re-test passed)

Quote - for next year after a fault claim.

Quote - for next year after a fault claim, combined with points.

Seeing a quote go from £1500 to £1200 to £3000 to 'insurance refused' in just a couple of lines might have an effect.

Maybe.

Road Pricing (triple the price of fossil fuels?)

2007-02-18T19:36:00.000Z

Well, it's coming. Not for another few years (2013 apparently), but it will happen.
I hear all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from all the hard working salt of the earth driving instructors worrying about how they'll put the food on the table, but I still don't care.

This was always going to be the best way of doing things - we ain't got much space, and we've got too many damn cars, something's gotta give.

The only problem from my point of view is that my titchy thingy (now now!) is only 3 metres long (hurhur!). Am I gonna be charged 66% of what a 4.5 metre Jag or Mitsubishi PretendingI'mabighardf*ck*(TM) would pay? I reckon probably not. How about by weight? My little thing weighs around a tonne. Am I gonna be charged 33% of the cost a 3 tonne Land Rover I'mscaredoftheworldbutrichsoI'llgetabigcarandturnintoabullymkIII(TM)? Again, I suspect not. My lovely dinky car does about 55 mpg, am I gonna be charged 25% of the price of a 13mpg Dodge Fatamericantw*t(TM)? You know the answer.

There's a simple way of cutting congestion and saving the world, and making fuel supplies last longer, and creating more local jobs, and ensuring that more things stay local, and stopping the loss of local shops, and making people think about the way they run their lives, and reducing the house price rises that make people who've lived in a village move away because of all the second homers, and develop new fuels, and generally MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, AND FURNISH IT WITH LOVE... (breaks into song........!).

How?

TRIPLE FOSSIL FUEL PRICES.
Yes. You heard correctly. TRIPLE them.

I could cope, and I'm pretty sure everyone else could if they just started thinking straight about how these things work.

But why TRIPLE fossil fuel prices? Why not just add a couple more pence? Well, it hasn't stopped people over the last 30 years has it? A gradual change in prices doesn't create an aknowledgement of a problem, but it does annoy people and disillusion them. TRIPLING fossil fuel prices would make people start to think. They would have to dramatically reduce un-necessary driving (at least 15%, given that a quarter of all car journeys are less than 2 miles - WALK fatboy WALK!). They would have to start using much more economical cars (the average car in the UK does under 30mpg, the better ones do 50mpg, so another 40% reduction). They would have to drive more smoothly, and closer to the speed limit, improving the roads for everyone (and their fuel consumption by around 10%). Plastics would become economic to recycle (dunno the figures, so lets say only 1%). Supermarkets and shops would have to source much more of their stock locally (hmmm, lets say another 3%). So pretty soon we've actually improved live and reduced fuel consumption by 69%, slightly reducing the fuel bill from BEFORE WE TRIPLED THE PRICE OF FUEL.

Now I know I haven't done any of the sums in a manner that could convince a parliamentary commitee, but can you not see that this would soon reduce road use and pollution. We would be eating food from the farm 6 miles away rather than some hydroponics unit in Peru. It would really p*ss off the school run mums (yep - I always walked), which is always a big bonus, with the added plus point of sorting out the youth obesity problem at the same time.

Oh, and the UK would become a world leader in bio fuel production, economic engine management systems, and green energy systems, which the rest of the world will pay us a fortune for once America has sucked the oil wells dry. And because of this we'll all be twice as rich as we were before our wondrous government TRIPLED THE PRICE OF FOSSIL FUELS. For which we will be eternally grateful.

Please?

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/transport/index.html - have a quick scan around this site and think for a moment.

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/time_to_put_the_break_on_r_16022007.html - just to put an end to some of the stupid scaremongering about this story.

How much does learning to drive cost?

2007-02-16T11:43:00.001Z

(if you've got here looking for how much it costs to train to be a driving instructor - look at: How much does it cost to train to be a driving instructor?)

So how much will learning to drive cost?

(A little help to calculate the average amount of driving lessons needed to pass, and the average lesson price! Yeah right - and everyone's average aren't they!)

Piece of string anyone?

Well lets start with how long will it take to learn.

Basic: 20 hours.

Doesn't sound a lot, but you've gotta be good to do it in that - probably a bloke (spatially aware, with mechanical knowledge, and used to riding a cycle/scooter on the road, been watching others drive for the last 5 years and with loads of motivation)

From here, add:

Female - 5hrs (don't shout at me, this is just a generalisation, and it's unfortunately often true, if you want me to explain then comment at the end and I will).

Lack of mechanical knowledge - 10 hrs.

Over 17 - add another hour for every year older you are (even I don't understand exactly why this should be the case, but I promise you, it does work this way).

Add another hour for every mile you live away from the test centre.

Never rode a bike with gears - 5 hours.

Never rode a bike in traffic - 5 hours.

Impatient parents/partners who shout at or beep at other drivers - 10 hours (charge them for this - it's their fault)

Nervous or easily intimidated - 10 hours.

Every break in lessons of a month or more - 2 hours.

Every break in lessons of 6 months or more - 5 hours.

Only a rough guide, but you can see that a confident 17 year old lad who lives near the test centre, rides a bike with gears through town to his apprentice job as a mechanic could pass in 20 hours. On the other hand, the timid 47 year old lady, who lives 10 miles out of town, has never ridden a bike with gears, and has a husband who shouts, beeps and tailgates everyone could take 110 hours or more.

Take 5 minutes to work out how long it will take, then work out how much your lessons will cost.

Basic lesson cost: £19/hour.

Add to this,

£2 if you cannot concentrate on complex tasks for more than 50 minutes at a time (longer lessons are often cheaper, than 1 hour lessons).

£1 if you cannot get a good recommendation (a good recommendation will save you time and effort. If you cannot get one, pay for a good instructor, rather than hunting down the cheapest, they will be cheap for a reason and may cost you a fortune in wasted lessons).

£3 if you live in London, or central to one of the big cities.

£1 if you want to learn in a fancy looking car (the mini is a favourite of instructors, because it draws in customers, but they need to recover the extra costs of running an expensive car somehow).

So going back to our apprentice mechanic - he could do it for £380, but if he lives in central Manchester, doesn't have great concentration, and wants to learn in a fancy car - it's gonna be £500. The timid lady has had a long chat with all her friends at the WI, and has found a marvellous instructor (who may be able to get her through in 100 hours rather than 110 or more), and doesn't care what she learns in, has good concentration, and lives in an ideal quiet suburb for starting her learning off can do it for £1900. (The lady next door though, the narky one who has the badly bleached hair and snobby attitude towards people who don't have fancy things takes 120 hours, and because of the fancy car, and the fact her husband told her not to have longer lessons pays £2760!)

Go on - how much is it going to cost you to learn! Remember, once you've done it - you've got it for life.

(edit: One thing I forgot to mention - if you wanna drive an auto - it should halve the amount of lessons you need, but add £2 to your lesson price)

How to pass the UK driving test

2007-02-15T22:29:00.000Z

There really is a simple answer to this.

Drive SAFELY.

That's all there is to it.

And yet I hear all the nay-sayers out there:

"but I failed for missing out couple of blindspot checks" - NO, you failed for moving off without being certain that it was safe.

"but I failed for driving at 52 in a 60 zone" - YES, the road was clear and you were driving too slowly - backing up traffic UNSAFELY.

"but I failed on observations on a manoover" - NO, you failed for not making sure that you weren't gonna hit anyone.

"but I failed because I went too wide on the reverse around a corner" - YES, you might have been driving on the wrong side of the road, or been blocking the junction for other traffic causing others to change their line or speed which could be UNSAFE.

"but I failed because I stopped at a roundabout - SURELY THAT COULDN'T BE UNSAFE?!" - TOO RIGHT IT COULD BE, the guy behind is looking at a clear roundabout and he isn't braking, and doesn't expect you to - rear end shunt time!

Think I've probably made that point, so I'll just remind you all - there is no bizaare ritual involved here, there is no need to ask "will I fail if I......?" because you know the answer all ready. You might not know it, but think about whatever it is that you're unsure about, and ask a few different questions:

Do I know what is going on around me? --------- If no, then find out.
If yes, then....
Do they know what I am going to do next? ------- If no, then tell them as clearly as possible without confusing them.
If yes, then....
Could I make another road user with priority change speed or direction? ------- If yes, wait till they're past.
If no, then....
Am I in full control of the car's speed and position? -------- If no, then slow down til you are.
If yes, then....
Carry on as you are! If you aren't putting yourself or anyone else in danger - you're fine. You've already passed, you just need to show them that you have.

Raising the driving age to 18.

2007-02-13T22:03:00.000Z

If they raised the age of driving by a year every time this rumour surfaced I'd be too young to drive. In the late nineties a pressure group suggested that the legal driving age should be 21, and there have been rumours ever since.

The curious thing is that the most recent rumours have been about allowing people to drive under supervision aged 16 rather than raising the age!

The fact is, age is not a huge influence until you get past age 25. According to one of the leading scientists who researches these things we can't assess risk properly until then. Unfortunately she throws this bit of information in on a promotional film for the driving school she works for - and I don't think they'll be limiting their potential customers to over 25's! (Especially not when their basic idea is to sell their driving course to mummy and daddy!)

So this is another of those fantastic rumour mill things which come around every now and again.

Have a look around the roads and you'll find 17 year olds whose judgement is fantastic, some 40 year olds who have no awareness of what is going on around them, and some 80 year olds who can overtake sunday drivers perfectly.

Age is not an issue, attitude and inexperience is what kills young drivers, not their lack of birthdays.

THE FACTUAL BIT:
Currently in the UK, you can take your theory test on your 17th birthday, and provided you pass, you can take your test as soon after this as you can get a booking.
If you are in reciept of higher rate disability living allowance, you can do all this on your 16th birthday.

Psychometric tests before you can drive?

2007-02-07T23:35:00.000Z

Hmmm. This one has started coming up recently.

Attitude testing done at the same time as the theory and hpt.

What would happen if you fail - 'Well you know your highway code backwards - 100% on that, your hazard perception is spot on, you see the problems, and react at the precise moment they develop from potential to actual hazards, but we think you're a bad 'un - so sod off, you can never drive - ever.'

I can't really see this one happening. Not because I don't want to encourage people to have a good attitude to driving, but because I think it is unworkable.

It would be fun though!
Try this one:

1: Do you feel that people who drive within the 2 second gap are -

a) Dangerous, and should be shot at dawn after having their mobile phones rivetted to their ears.
b) Stupid, and should be banned from being in charge of anything which can travel at more than 4 miles per hour.
c) Lazy, and every time they are caught should be whipped in order to get them to buck their ideas up.

2: Drivers who are found liable in the case of an accident should -

a) Be banned from driving as they are a danger to themselves and others.
b) Have to pay for the time and resources of the police and emergency services, thus forcing their insurance up so high they will never be able to afford it.
c) Be banned from driving until they can pass an advanced driving test requiring a thorough understanding of why these methods should be employed at ALL times.

3: Drivers who cannot signal correctly at least 98% of the time should -

a) Have their licences taken off them because if they cannot communicate in such a simple and necessary way they are obviously mentally deficient.
b) Only be able to drive vehicles which are brightly coloured (maybe orange, with 3 wheels), have large and visible warnings that the occupant's actions may be unpredictable, and be limited via a black box gps to the speed limit.
c) Be made to take a sign language course, and a morse code course, and a course in semaphore, passing stringent examinations in all thus enforcing the need and capability of clear and simple non-verbal communication.

If you answered mainly 'A' - you believe that many people on the road are dangerous. This may lead to anger and road rage - hand in your licence to the DVLA and get a bus pass.

If you answered mainly 'B' - you believe that many people on the road are stupid. Again - get a bus pass.

If you answered mainly 'C' - you believe that many people on the road are lazy. Become a driving instructor and help to do something about it!

So you wanna be a driving instructor?

2007-02-05T22:50:00.000Z

£30K?
A new car?
Work around your commitments?
Sounds tempting don't it?
Do you know how much work it takes to get £30k a year?
Well let's do a little basic math.
Average lesson: 1hour.
Average time taken out of your day to give that 1hour lesson: 1.5 hours.
Average cash recieved for that 1.5 hours: £18 (after discounts - this is a realistic average)
Average cost to give that 1.5 hour lesson:
Advertising - £1.50 (at least)
Car - £3 (based on £90/week and 30 hours of teaching)
Petrol/Diesel - £2 (at least)
Miscellanaeous - 50p (believe me, it's cheaper sitting in front of the shiny adverts
than it is doing the job)
Average income (before tax) for that 1.5 hour lesson - £11
Average hourly rate (before tax) - £7.33
Weekly income after expenses (before tax) - £330
Average yearly income (4 weeks off, and 5 days sick/car nackered/snowed in etc) - £15,510
Cost per year of continued professional development - £350 (at least)
Cost per year of accountancy - £250
Cost per year of membership of professional bodies - £100
Cost per year of repairs to car not covered by lease/guarantees - £100
Average income after extra costs - £15,060
Amount of time spent building your business without any recompense - ?!?!? (10 hours/week?)
Average hours needing to be booked per week to achieve 30 hours after cancellations - 35
Average number of road rage incidents from other motorists per day - 2 (at least)
Cost of qualifying - £3000
Time taken to build up the business to a point where you actually have a full diary and start to turn a profit - 1 year (how much would you have earnt in that time?)

Do you still wanna be an instructor?

How much should driving lessons cost?

2007-02-01T12:42:00.000Z

Hmmm.

First lesson free, first 2 lessons for £20, 5 for £99, £16/hour, £20/hour, £25/hour?

What the hell....?

My kids get riding lessons (yeah yeah, don't start), and for each kid it costs me twice my hourly rate. One of my kids gets guitar lessons, and this costs my hourly rate, for which I have to take them over and pick them up, and I guess there are very few running costs (insurance I hope, and a bit of equipment). So am I in the right job?

Believe me, my hourly rate is already towards the top end of the list at the start of this piece, and I don't muck about with ongoing discounts, they pay up front, and they usually have to pay if they cancel late. I did a lot of training for this job, and I still pay about £600 a year for extra training (roll on CPD - I'm already ahead of you guys). I don't give discounts to anyone, other than people paying in advance, and then it's no more than a couple of quid an hour.

So why do I earn less than my kids guitar teacher? Who has the more demanding job? Who has the most (relevant) qualifications?

As always, market forces are at work.

I don't have a problem with the discount brigade, but I do feel sorry for them. They will always be trying to undercut each other. They will always be getting the customers who look at the cash they hand over, and not the training they get back. They will always get the raw deal, and they will never be able to get out of this situation until they change their attitude to their business model.

I don't like teaching fools, and fools don't have any money, so I price myself out of their market. The market I enjoy teaching expect the best training they can get - so I improve the training I recieve, and keep it up. The market I enjoy teaching expect to pay a reasonable price and get value for money - so I give them their full lesson (no turning up late or finishing early). The people willing to pay these prices expect reliability - so I run a new car, and I don't cram lessons together and wind up cancelling if stuck in traffic.

Think about how you want to work. Don't be ashamed of asking for a reasonable amount of money for what you do. And NEVER get caught in the price wars.

Given the changes to our business, these prices will soon be going up, as the pink-factories and the part timers find it harder and harder to keep up with things, or get legislated out of the game.

People will get what they want, but will have to pay for it.

How much is being able to drive worth?

DSA quotas!

2007-01-30T19:11:00.000Z

They don't frickin exist people!

I'm kinda gettin tired of sayin this, but they really don't. So stop asking!

This is the old wives tale that if your test is at the end of the day/week/month/year/financial year, then you won't pass - because the examiner will have passed his 'quota' already. (And showing what stupid thinking this is - by the same logic if they haven't passed enough people then you'd be almost bound to pass!)

They don't exist - they never have. What does exist, always has and probably always will is VARIANCES.

If you are good enough, you pass your test, but how do we know that what one examiner thinks is good enough is the same as another examiner? (I say potato, you say potahhto...) Well this is where variances are necessary - if one old git at Smotheringhouseton test centre whose divorce is going badly decides that no-one is going to pass, then he will soon find his results flagged up on the DSA computer. The other 6 examiners tend to hover around 39% at Smotheringhouseton test centre, but 'the major' has a pass rate nearer 12% - why? What happens next is that 'the major' gets a visit from their 'supervising examiner', who sits in on the back of a load of tests with him to find out why his pass rate is so low. This supervising examiner finds that this examiner has decided to fail everyone who drives at 2 mph below the 60 limit on the ring road ('because it annoys the hell out of me when I'm on my way home'). 'The major', now has to undergo some retrospective training, to ensure that his marking is in line with everyone else.

After a few weeks, 'the major's' divorce comes thru, he is relaxing into single life, he now knows that 2mph under the limit is not a fail, but could be seen as a driver fault, and is becoming all smiles again at the test centre. No longer do the local 6th Form college students dread getting him on their test, no longer do instructors roleplay the old sod on mock tests, and all of this happiness is due to variances! Hurrah.

So no, quotas don't exist, and for some of the instructors who worry about variances in the same way - stop worrying - they'll keep you safe from examiners who don't like your face. In the mean time, instead of complaining about the examiners, look to your training instead.

For all the instructor's out there - have a look at the SDEs guidelines:

2.4 PASS/FAIL STATS – RESPONSIBILITY OF SDE/EIC
It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the passing of a constant, or nearly constant, percentage of candidates by an examiner, is not evidence that he has required the same standard of competence to be shown by all; nor can the fact that a number of examiners have shown a common percentage of passes be taken as evidence that their assessment is uniform. It is true that when an examiner has conducted over 400 tests (for category ‘B’ tests only) it would be reasonable to expect little difference between the percentages of passes within a centre, but this does not mean that a similar percentage should be looked for in the daily, weekly or monthly results of tests conducted by individual examiners. However, it is the responsibility of the SDE to ensure that any unusual trends are reported to the SM and investigates the route cause of any variance.

If you want to look at the whole sleep inducing document:

http://www.dsa.gov.uk/Documents/practical_test/dt2/DT2%2025%20October%2005.pdf

.......yawn.

Why can't driving instructors agree?!

2007-01-28T01:44:00.000Z

There are a lot of arguments going on at the moment, just look at the forums - even dtt is becoming bitchy! For some reason people can't see the wood for the trees. All of the changes to the system (most of them as yet pretty badly laid out) are making ADIs twitchy. They are looking for someone to blame.

First off they start sniping at the people around them - other ADIs, usually with the traditional dividing lines of ADI vs Trainee (pinkies), independent vs franchise. Luckily these tend just to be personality clashes, and different ways of doing stuff.

Where it gets more worrying is when they team up against the DSA. This side of things is getting very heated at the moment, and if the DSA don't start picking up on this ill will soon then they will have problems. Problems which will most likely start at the test centre - stupid ADIs taking their frustration out on the guys at the coal face. I'm gonna go out on a limb now and say DON'T TAKE THINGS OUT ON THE EXAMINERS. Barring the odd pill*ck examiners are a fine bunch, and considering what they do I reckon there's a lot less bad apples than in most industries.

The DSA do have a few things to answer for - they are slow at getting information out to us (yes, the emails help guys, but what is happening with tests - are new guidelines being issued or what?). They are also not the greatest at asking for input, every now and again I hear about a survey being done, but I don't seem to get asked anything (maybe they've got me sussed and want to steer well clear!). The main problem though doesn't lie with the DSA.

It lies with the politicians above. And are we gonna be able to change that? Not a hope in hell!

So what is the solution? Well we need to start working together a bit more, instructors with instructors, independents with franchises, and most of all - ADIs with the DSA. If the DSA have to get something done, then it will be done, but if ADIs work WITH the DSA rather than against them, we might be able to shape it into something workable and useful to our ends.

If you ask any ADI worth their salt what they want to see happening, it will include safer roads. Ask the DSA, and you'll get the same answer.

Lets try and hang together on a few of these issues guys. I know - radical 'devils advocate' thinking there, but it might just work!

UK Driving Test Getting Harder

2007-01-27T02:53:00.000Z

Yup. It's gonna happen!

Well, they've been doing it for years - take anyone who took their test more than a year ago and ask them to sit it again with no extra training - they'd be stuffed!

Our wondrous minister Mr Ladyman, has stuck his nose in again complaining that ADIs aren't teaching good attitude to their customers (good attitude - from the guy who screamed around on Top Gear and has clocked up 9 penalty points for speeding?). So he wants people to do 120 hours behind the wheel before taking their test, maybe turn the thing into a 2 stage test, and make people drive at night and on different types of road, maybe take compulsory training with an ADI, learn about driving while at school.

Fair enough, most of it, though it all depends on how they implement it, but the way it has been presented has annoyed instructors even more than normal. By suggesting that ADIs don't do their job properly he is making sure that the public think that we're just conning them. (I dread to think how they'll respond when we tell them we want them all to take more lessons before we let them go to test because they'll mess up our pass rates - oh, and because you're not ready, you'll have to pay to re-book your test! Yeah right - that's gonna work.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6223887.stm - basic intro to the story.

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12389-2527212,00.html - comment at The Times.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=154&t=340548 - the pistonheads have it pretty much spot on - making the test harder is a fairly good idea, but will have no effect on safety - young lads are pretty good at upping their game for the test, but once they have that pink card in their hand.......

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1596635/an/0/page/0 - some interesting comments, and some utter rubbish from the people in the know at 'horse and hound'!

http://www.beyonddriving.co.uk/2007/04/20/making-the-driving-test-harder/ - a take on this from an instructor.

http://www.theslant.co.uk/2007/01/02/driving-tests-to-get-harder/ - "instant fail upon ownership of burberry would be a start", slightly humourous take from The Slant.

Go to the forums and have a rant, or email the DSA's head of driver safety strategy direct at:
peter.ward@dsa.gsi.gov.uk

Or wind up the lovely Mr Ladyman himself:
stephen.ladyman@dft.gsi.gov.uk

Oh, and if you're getting worried about that driving test you've got booked - relax - this won't happen for approximately 32.367 years based on past experience of suggested changes.

Why do drivers presume a car with L-plates on is going to hold them up?

2007-01-26T23:35:00.000Z

I'm gonna admit something here I shouldn't.

I get pretty p*ssed off with just about everyone else on the road some days.
Then I get therapy and chill out again - but this one annoys the sh*t out of me!

During a lesson today - my bloke had done really well on his second lesson, and I was driving him home through some hellish junctions he didn't fancy trying (we'll do em next week I promise - but think about crossing a 4 lane road after your second lesson - yep!). There were no gaps, not even cheeky ones - it was chucking out time for the schools, and the (completely pointless) 4x4's were thundering by from both directions. But, because there were L-plates on the car - the guy behind presumed we must be holding him up so he beeped at us!

Donchajustluvvem! I seriously debated stalling it then rolling back into his stupid merc (are these guys given an exemption from the highway code when they buy one?), but then realised saying 'om' would be a much more positive, enlightening, and karmic thing to do.

It doesn't matter what you do - they see the L's and just have to go for you - it's like a target to them. When younger I retaliated - I sometimes miss that, but no - my reward will come when I have shuffled off this mortal coil (preferably taking some tw*t in a range rover sport out of the game with me - did I type that or just think it? sorry). I'll have lovely worms eating me (shame I'm not religeous innit!).

Driving me mad!

2007-01-26T23:05:00.000Z

Well, the guys in charge of driving instructors (the DSA) are thinking about publishing everything about us, in the same way that league tables are created for schools.

Which seems great until you work out that we can cheat the system!

The Pass Rate, which they're thinkin of publishing is one of the bluntest instruments around - it says that out of 100 tests taken by my lot, 58 of them were passes. Fair enough, a bit above the average (43 ish). Only problem is that as soon as they publish these, everyone is going to be looking for the guy who's rate is 96%.

'But don't people have 96% pass rates already - I've seen them advertised?' - NO! These are bullsh*t made up rates, which can be fixed by silly word play in the adverts, or in the way they work out 'their' pass rate.

The DSA one is the only one which will count if they do this.

'What's wrong with that then - surely the good guys will get work, the bad guys out of business - as it should be?' - But they're easy to cheat - all you do is refuse to take anyone to test until you've made them take an extra 20 lessons on top of what they need. Or dump them if they're a bit of a challenge. Or take your badge out of the window so the result doesn't go on your stats if you think that nerves are getting the better of them. Or refuse to take on people with disabilities because they're harder to teach. In fact, take the money off everyone, but only ever take the lads with mechanical skills to test - keep the others learning for ever - whoopee - probably a 85% pass rate straight off.

But a lot of conned girls, disabled people, people with language difficulties, nervous drivers, older drivers......

'Why can't you get a better pass rate with these people?' Well that's the point - you can, but it takes a hell of a lot more time - do you want to pay an extra grand for your driving lessons? I'll take it off you if you are offering it!

'How would you fix the problem of dodgy young drivers then? Come on, stop complaining and give us some solutions!' Ok then - psychometric testing for learners; a test based on assessing attitude and not skill (this might actually be happening soon!); publishing a driving instructors grade (a local official comes and watches a lesson and says how good it is - according to the DSA Freedom of Information section people can already request ADI grades); make driving instructors leave their badge in the window if they're taking them to test (come on instructors - take a bit of responsibility); start charging people involved in accidents for police time - similar to how ambulances are billed for; black boxes - if you break the speed limit - your insurance goes up! Hell - there's loads of ways of doing it, most of which don't penalise the good guys.

Please lovely people at the Driving Standards Agency - don't be bl**dy stupid, coz I'm sorry - I've got a living to make, and as much as I love my job I will need to cheat my pass rate up if you do this, and so will a lot of other guys - the phone won't ring if we don't.