New BSM driving school car

Some of you might have heard that BSM are changing their driving school cars from the Vauxhall Corsa to the Fiat 500, well I've seen a few of them on the roads giving tuition, and took some photographs of what looks like a very trendy but maybe not so practical (as far as ADI's with families are concerned) car.



Many driving instructors have nicknamed it the BSM bubble car due to it's small cute look that looks like a half bubble. I know some of the present ADI's are not totally happy with the change (even considering giving up thier BSM franchise) to the new driving school vehicle especially when it is the only one used in the household (the car is quite small with not enough space in the rear for grown passengers and their luggage, and the weekly trip to the supermarket will be even less enjoyable as a family outing in the fiat 500.

All this should not however change the attitude of learner drivers to taking BSM driving lessons, in fact it might even lead more to changing camp, because it would look more easy to do driving test maneuvers in, and it would also be a good taking point in college or university students mess halls with a few bragging about how they are the first to learn to drive in one.

Did you know that the Fiat 500 orginally had a 500cc engine as its powerhouse. BSM driving school apprently will be saving a lot of money with this more enviromentally friendly green car, considering they used to go through 14,000 vauxhall corsas a year.


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Licenced drivers fail the driving test

According to a recent experiment conducted by Which Car, 3 out of 5 licenced drivers on the road will not pass the current driving test, so what chance do learner drivers have, especially when things are even going to get harder next year.

One of the reasons why people fail the test is the bad habits they pickup or are taught if not having driving lessons with an instructor, since they are not aware of the current standards required by the DSA examiner.

If you have passed the test with the last 2 years, you are still under probation and getting 6 penalty points on your licence will take you back to learner driver status. Even if you have held your licence for more than 2 years, a magistrate can still order you to re-take an extended driving test if you are convicted of a motoring offence and are banned from the roads.

Mini Convertible and Toyota IQ fail driving test

Not all new cars can be used on the UK driving test, and the DSA has decided that both the new BMW Mini Convertible and the Smart car rival the Toyota IQ both do not give the DSA examiner good all round visibility and thus are not suitable to be used for driving tests.



This is one of the reasons why anyone considering not using a driving school instructor to take their test needs to make sure they thoroughly go over the DSA website to make sure they know the current requirements for getting a full british licence and always read the test appointment letter before arriving at the centre.

If you arrive for a practical assessment in either a new Mini Convertible or the Toyota IQ, the test will not go ahead, you will lose your booking fee, and have to wait at least 10 days before you will have another atempt.

Don't forget your 'L' plates, the interior mirror for examiner, check those tyres to make sure they are legal and remember you can't use hire car for the test.

Follow the DSA on Twitter.

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Driving Instructor £20 per hour

I was having a conversation with some who said that teaching learner drivers is a very lucrative job since driving instructors earn £20 or more per hour, and since passing the UK practical test is getting harder, there must be a lot of work out there for them.



This wrong impression about what instructors earn is one of the reasons why red driving school's TV advert is so successfull in drawing unsuspecting members of the pubic into parting with thousands of pounds chasing a pipe dream of a new carreer looking to earn some easy £30,000 a year.

Driving instructors don't earn £20 per hour, even those with big school schools such as BSM, RED or AA for the following reasons.

1. While you might have paid £20 for a hour tuition session with the instructor, it would probably have taken an average of 15mins to get to your home and another 15mins to the next appointment, so it takes the driving instructor 1.5hrs to earn that £20.
2. The whole of the £20 fee is not wages, and this is what seems to mislead a lot of people by adverts such as those by the red driving school into taking up a course trying to become and ADI.
Out of that fee comes money for petrol, car insurance, road tax, maintenance, driving instructor marketing and other business expenses, so will be less than £10 for those 1.5hours of effort.

If you still think you want a job as an instructor, by all means go ahead and get quailfied. If you put in the hard work, you will make it.

Driving Accident Texting

You will probably not be involved in a car accident during your driving lessons, but eventually you will pass your driving test, buy yourself a car to run around town with your mates and your confidence will grow until one day you might be tempted to so silly things like the girl in this road safety video, texting on a mobile phone while driving a car.



Not everyone will continue to drive at the dsa standard as taught by their driving instructor, but it is important to remember that you are not indestructible, and those stupid unsafe habits will eventually catch up with you.

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Stopped on International driving licence

Today I was giving a foreigner with a current and valid international driving permit from Pakistan some tution on how to bring his skills up to the level required by the dsa examiner in his own car, and thus we were not displaying 'L' plates when a police car pulled up behind us in Borehamwood and put on their blue lights indicating they wanted us to stop, at first the driver got confused and moved off again, and I had to explain to him that they wanted him to stop, so we pulled into a supermarket car park and waited for the officer to come to us, as it was pouring with rain.

It turned out that we had been stopped because one of the rear brake lights had not been working, and not because the international driving licence holder's car had pinged the APNR database in the policeman's vehicle.
As is customary when you are stopped in a car, the driver was asked his name, date of birth and if he had a licence to which he answered that he held an international permit for about 8 months. A few checks later, the officer returned saying everything was in order, and that he needed to get the car fixed.

This is just a warning to those of you who might be using an expired international driving license, in the UK, you better take some driving lessons and get yourself trained to the level required to pass the UK car test and get the pass certificate and get legal, as you never know when you will get stoppped, and it might not be because you did anything wrong as was the case of my client.

Driving School Tax April 2009

If you are a self-employed driving instructor, and are filing a paper driving school tax return for your self-assesment for the finacial year ended April 2009, then you have until the end of october to do this or get your accountants to get the information to inland revenue by that due date.



For those who are comforable with computers, and have registered online, then you have until Jan 2010 to file your tax return via the inland revenue website.

Failure to meet these deadlines will result in financial penalties which you don't really want in the current school credit crunch times.

These are some of the no so glamorous duties that you have to carry out as a driving school owner, and the time and effort involved is not paid for and these running costs need to be taken into account if you want to get involved in this business.

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