Similar to our advice article on how to pick a good driving instructor, we briefly touched on how you can prevent being conned by a dodgy or illegal driving instructor. As a learner driver, you are vuneralble to what information you take in from driving instructors, you are new to it all and the last thing you want is to be ripped off, during a recession. 

By your 2nd driving lesson you should be able to tell whether you are getting a good value tuition service for your money. Human beings by nature are creatures of habit, and a bad instructor will not take long to show his/her true colours once they settle into their routine, ripping people off!

Before you know it, those shouting traits, time wasting tactics, using your lesson time to make mobile phone calls, send and reply text messages or even pop into the bank to make a deposit or to even pay a bill will soon show up! What we don't get is why learners at this point don't change driving instructors?! Is it because you have been recommended by someone you know personall, do you not want to offend them. The interesting thing is that some of these bad driving instructors are with national driving schools like BSM, AA, Red, Bill Plant, LDC so in many cases, it is not because the provisional licence holders are getting very cheap driving lessons that they continue to accept this low level of service. You are paying THEM, and regardless of whether you are a learner or not, you MUST demand a certain level of service from your instructor, whether they are teaching you something or not. 

Remember all ADIs are self employed so having a franchise with a big company in no way has any bearing on how they as an individual act on a daily basis, there might be guidelines they have to follow, but there is no way a BSM manager in baker street or an AA official based in Bristol will be able to monitor all their franchisees to see if they are delivering the professional services that should be associated with the brand.

How many of you preparing for the practical driving test will buy a product from a shop, find out it is not what you expected and not take it back for a refund or replacement? Pretty much all of you! Don't forget that driving lessons is a service/product; your instructor agrees to give you high quality tuition for one hour, 2 hrs in exchange for money. If you don't get what you expect, the least you should do is let the ADI know, if he/she is not willing to do anything about it, then take your business somewhere else! With an abundance of driving instructors in the UK (including big cities like London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds) looking to get more pupils, you shouldn't have problems getting a replacement especially if you ask friends, family, colleagues, neighbours for recommendations (make sure you ask questions about time keeping, attitude towards learners, other road users and other instructors and the additional questions we posed in the how to pick a good driving instructor article). If a recommended instructor can't fit you in immediately because they are busy, it might be a good idea to at least wait, have an assessment with them before going somewhere else, they might be fully booked because they offer a good and high quality service.

Also you might have to pay a little more to get the right person teaching you how to drive and pass the test (I've known of people taking 10, 20 driving lessons coming to me and saying they've learnt more in 2hrs than the previous time spent with their former instructor, with a few not knowing basics like MSM, I'm not surprised that they therefore at their last attempt failed the driving test!), so keep looking till you get the right ADI, I can assure you there are plenty of honest and hard working ones out there, they might not be cheap nor all use your ideal driving school car (yes there are some who insist they want to learn in a BMW mini, Old style Ford Fiesta, Nissan Micra, etc).
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