Is my driving instructor taking the mick?

ooh 41 hours :P you rebel

£20 pound a lesson? mine charges £24 ! i think i'm being ripped off. plus she likes me to book in two hour sessions and always finished 25-30 mins early. for the first two lessons i had which were in a two hour block she drove me to this area which was 40 mins away and then she started to teach. she said she does that for the first 6 hours, and she finished half an hour early each time.

so i only really got taught for 50 mins per two hour block.

i think i'm being hussled ...

Ok sorry then. Although to be fair, how was I to know you were talking about pinda college (post #7) when you didn't even quote him? And because you didn't quote anyone I obviously assumed it was a stand alone comment directed at the OP not the sexist guy.

Hi. Let me address a couple of issues.

If you dont get on with your instructor, change straight away. Talk to your friends who have recently passed and find out who did good for them. Was the car good, was their attitude good, did they arrive on time, all important factors.

How many lessons? The Driving Standards Agency suggests 47 hours of professional tuition and 20 plus hous of private driving, so I guess this is where your instructor gets her figures from, see HERE for more information.

However .......

Most of my pupils do pass their test within 35 hours, the best ever was just 12 hours, but everyone does learn at different speeds. All my pupils get a full hours of driving, if its a 1 hour lesson, and the lesson is planned and objectives set when they get in the car.

On the very rare occasions that I need to touch the pedals, I discuss the situation with the pupils and then the pupil reapproaches the same hazard and we work through it together (is is usually observation based!).

As far as reversing goes, it is a skill that you need to perfect, and usually my pupils are reversing by hour 3.

However, in your list of things that you say you can do, you ommit, probably the most important part of safe driving, observation. If you cannot effectively observe what is going on, then you cannot drive safely. So have a thing and do you use MSM, MSPSL and LADA, and do you use Early Vision, Early Decision. If you dont, then ask your instructor about it, or indeed change.

Driving is great and so enjoy your lessons but be safe.

The Driver.

I dont think theres anything wrong with it taking 50 hours, pretty sure the average is around 40; some people will do it in 20 but some people will need 60 or more.
If you think shes a bad instructor then thats a different story but at the end of the day shes a fully qualified instructor who has much more experience than you, if she feels you might need 50 then who are you to disagree? Youre learning to drive.

I personally thought id be ready to pass my test in 20 lessons the speed I was going through what I had to learn, on average I spent about 30 mins on each new thing which meant I had twice as few lessons as recommended, being the nervous type and not wanting to book my test early I left it late and there was a months wait for the test, ive had closer to 30+ lessons but its all experience. I know people who fluked their test and are too scared to drive out now, I didnt want to be like that, whats the point in passing your test when you cant 'drive' or arent confident enough to handle all situations?

Nice one. It's good when you click with someone, isn't it.

For perspective, I'm a couple of weeks away from my practical. I keep telling my instructor that I don't feel *quite* ready and could do with a bit more tweaking - he says I shouldn't pay for any more lessons than the ones I've already paid for with him because it would be a waste of money as I'm ready! (Still not sure about that, lol).

Point is that there's some good guys out there who enjoy helping ppl pass etc and not just in it for the Benjamins.