Driving Instructor Lesson Plans and Diagrams

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?

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:

1. Get the enquiries - either by advertising, doorstepping or cold calling
2. Answer the enquiries (not "You've reached Bob the driving instructor, please leave a message and I'll get back to you.")
3. Send out proposals and costings which are professional, competetive but not amateurishly cheap and are suitable for the customer
4. Liaise with the customer to design the course.
5. Provide pre-course materials including profilers and theory tests
6. Assess drivers from profiles and info given
7. Assess drivers on-road
8. Design training courses to fix any problems
9. Cost training courses and propose them
10. Carry out training courses
11. Invoice
12. Wait
13. Pay instructors out of own pocket
14. Wait
15. 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?

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

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

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

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

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!!!