Ripped off by driving instructor

I recently had an Iranian foreign licence holder come to me for some intensive driving lessons in preparation for a practical car test, and heard of how he had been ripped of by a driving school instructor.



This learner driver had 10 years of driving experience in a foreign country, had already passed the theory test and wanted some tuition to get to the dsa test standard, and I was thus surprised when he told me that he only had 20 minutes of driving from a 2 hour session. Basically the instructor who happened to hold a franchise with a well known national driving school, had ripped him off, by spending one and a half hours going through some kind of 'theory' to educated him on the way things are done here in the UK.

While the driving school had no control over how an instructor runs his franchise, such an incident will not do the brand any good, and it is a shame that an ADI would conduct themselves in such an unprofessional manner just because the learner driver was a bit naive!

So is there anything that a potential learner driver could do to avoid being ripped off by a driving instructor? I give some suggestions that might help.

1. Don't pay for tuition at the beginning of the driving lesson. If your instructor is offering good value for money, there should be no reason why he or she should insist on paying for a service that hasn't been delivered yet. Remember that to be paid for giving driving lessons, you need to be on the DSA's register of ADI's, so no green/red badge, no payment.

2. Don't put up with poor or sub-standard service. If you think you are being ripped off by your driving instructor because that once very good person has now turned sour, don't put up with it. Make your disatisfaction know, and if you don't get what you want, you should change driving instructors.

3. Use the DSA learner driver's record to keep a record of your progess. You are less likely to get ripped off, if at the end of each driving lesson you go through the record, and note what you've learnt in each lesson. You should either be learning a new skill levels 1,2, 3 or improving/becoming independent on skills already learnt 3-5. You should not be repeating the same junction routines, turn in the road exercise if you are making good progress and can perform without little or no help from the instructor.

4. If in doubt, always seek a second opinion. Don't be afraid to book an assessment lesson with another instructor, you might be find out new things or new ways to doing some driving skills.

While you can never as a learner driver be totally certain that you are being ripped off by a driving instructor, if for any reason you are not getting enough driving time, not making much progress (remember you adi should be finding solutions to help you stop making particular mistakes), keep getting your test denied with no light at the end of the tunnel, then think seriously about if you are getting good value for your hard earned money.