Saturday, 19 September 2009

You pay for driving instructors time but

As a learner driver, you agree to pay the driving instructor a set amount of money for his time, use of car and his knowledge that gets imparted to you as you prepare for your practical dsa car test. This means that you are not doing each other any special favour, a service is provided to you, in exchange the driving school ADI gets given money.
As a business owner I'm grateful for your custom (each additional driving lesson taken means you agree that you had value for money the last time and were satisfied), and would always love you to return until you no longer require my tution services because you've passed or moved out of town, but no matter how much you have paid me in the past, I don't owe you anything, but more importantly you DONT OWN me.

An incident happened to me today while giving a driving lesson to a student which highlights how some people (not everyone shares this view, in fact most of my clients respect me as an instructor) think of ADIs. It was towards the lesson, and as usual another road user had overtaken us dangerously because they felt my student was being too slow. My student responded that why do the keep doing this and added 'this area is full of F%$& Indians' so I responded no swearing in my car. My learner driver then got all defensive saying I too swore (which I don't) and that I had called other road users Idiots in the past (which I have when they behave like one), and that anyway they had paid for my time and if they wanted to swear in my car then they could. I immediately put the person straight saying if they thought that because they gave me some money they could pour filthy junk into my ears then they could go and look for another instructor. The person kept quiet and didn't talk to me for the rest of the lesson, even driving a bit erratic and not responding to any prompts given.
I've got another lesson booked during the week (person has paid in advance so I'm thinking they would have cooled off by then), so hopefully we can continue to work together otherwise it would be the end of the road.

As an instructor I'm not going to let anyone think I'm their puppet just because they give me money in exchange for tuition, I'm not a desperate driving instructor and while you might think that many of us do the job because we are not good at anything else (which is far from the case), I do this because I love the job, the benefits and flexibility (now that the driving school business is established) and will not take nonsense from no one.

Okay rant over, you pay for my driving instructors time and get high quality tuition which is what you deserve, no sexual, racial or emotional abuse will come your way, and I don't expect or will tolorate it coming at me either.

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