Driving school

How do you choose a good driving school?
That is actually a very difficult question. Are you concerned about the driving school itself, rather than the driving instructor i.e. it's name, it's brand, it's advertising or it's special offers. Because at the end of the day you really have to get along with your driving instructor not the image of the driving school.

You might think they are one of the same, but they are not when you get down to it.

Take a look at the two big driving schools in the UK. The AA driving school and BSM driving school, they both charge more than most other driving schools, they both have appeared in television advertising and national press, they both change their cars every six months to one year. That is the DRIVING SCHOOL COMPANY not the driving instructor. When you have your driving lessons you are going to be sitting next to a qualified or trainee driving instructor. You are going to possibly be spending around 40 to 50 hours with your driving instructor. Therefore it's not the driving school company you should be looking for, but the driving instructor.

Narrow your search

You can narrow your search in a few ways and one of them is NOT the price of the driving lessons. A mistake many people make when searching for lessons is to either book the cheapest driving school or more unusually, book the dearest driving school, thinking you only get what you pay for. Not so with driving lessons.

What's the difference? It's not price
Driving lessons price is not an indication of the quality of driving tuition you will get. The biggest companies BSM and AA driving schools have normal driving instructors who are just trying to make a living as with any other driving instructor. The reason you pay the high price at either of these two driving schools is that their running costs of the new cars and franchise charges are high. In effect you are paying two lots of fee's. One for the driving instructors wage and the other for the big company profits. BSM use trainee instructors as well as qualified instructors, so you are not sure which one you are going to get. AA use qualified driving instructors but most have very little experience, they are fresh out of training school. These new instructors tend to stay only a few months before they leave.
The one person operated driving school tends on the whole to give you a better service on your driving lessons because they have a reputation to keep and rely a lot on recommendations and local advertising. They may not be cheap because the running costs of their driving school cars can be quite high, but you are less likely to be double booked as your driving instructor updates the only diary. With BSM and AA there are two diary booking systems which means you may get double bookings and you may not get the same instructor every lesson. Read the blog comments…