AA / RED or private instructors?

RED
Great instructor
£21 p/h

Passed about 12 lessons

I also learnt with RED. A lot of my friends learnt with them too (various driving instructors though, not my one) and were all happy.

I passed first time, my lessons were £26 an hour but I was living in Surrey at the time (expensive area). First hour was free though so I saved £26 overall.

It was definitely worth the money though. Very happy with his teaching style etc.

I come from a sales background, so I got it down from £25 to £21 in about 10 minutes.

Is that after your very first lesson?

Nah he said £25 before we got in the car, I just haggled it down, I was like seriously I'll pay £20, otherwise I'm not taking the lesson, and I said I know you don't want that to happen because your profit is based on how many lessons you get in a day, and if I don't take this one you'll loose out on some money, we both then agreed on £21

It's not about the area, if you haggled you could have got it down to £20 if you wanted.

The drivers don't have fixed rates, there's an amount which they HAVE to give back to RED/AA/BSM, which is around £7/8. Anything they charge on top of that goes into their wages, of which they have to buy petrol.

So when they charge £20 p/h they're only really making about £12p/h, which isn't much. Add £5 and it becomes £17 p/h sound nice to me...

As I said it's not fixed.. :P

And following on from the last post (+rep), it would be hard to get more inaccuracies in a single post than the one quoted above.

National school franchisees pay a fixed fee for the lease of the car. So they might have to pay £200 for that every week.

If they teach 20 hours, and charge £20 an hour, then they earn £10 an hour (and pay another £10 towards the car).

At 30 hours they earn £13. At 35 hours they earn £14, and at 40 hours they earn £15.

Out of any of those earnings, they have to pay for fuel. AT no point are they making anywhere near £17 (well, not unless they avoid driving and so make you take more lessons than you need, which is hardly the bargain you'd convinced yourself it was).

So you're talking out of that orifice not capable of facial expression. Again

I charge £23 an hour and I do not haggle. Anyone like you turned up - you know, someone who had known how to drive since they were in the womb, and who was out to teach ME how to drive - would be sent on their way. If not immediately, as soon as they started messing me around. Working this way, I have a diary which is always full of decent pupils, and not time-wasting or obnoxious idiots.

Emma, thanks for your view. I doubt you would have charged me full-amount, I would have haggled, like I do in everything. Saves me a lot of $$$. However it's not cheeky, as I said it's my money, and I want to save it.

Exactly. We are living in hard times and money doesn't exactly grow on trees...

Emma, thanks for your view. I doubt you would have charged me full-amount, I would have haggled, like I do in everything. Saves me a lot of $$$. However it's not cheeky, as I said it's my money, and I want to save it.

It's not about the area, if you haggled you could have got it down to £20 if you wanted.

The drivers don't have fixed rates, there's an amount which they HAVE to give back to RED/AA/BSM, which is around £7/8. Anything they charge on top of that goes into their wages, of which they have to buy petrol.

So when they charge £20 p/h they're only really making about £12p/h, which isn't much. Add £5 and it becomes £17 p/h sound nice to me...

As I said it's not fixed.. :P

Is that after your very first lesson?

Wrong! I would have charged you full amount - you could haggle as much as you like and all it's going to get you is a refusal. Besides, I don't charge £26 - I never said I did - but it's not unreasonable for Surrey, which is the point I've already had to make once.

You're not far off with that - if someone gets graded 1-3 after several check tests then they are, in theory, removed from the register. However, in the meantime they can still teach. It's bad, I admit.

ORDIT is the register of driving instructor trainers - people who teach others to be instructors. It says nothing about their ability to teach learners, though.

It's also worth pointing out that a check test where a grade is awarded is a snapshot on the day, and it is quite possible that some grade 4s are better than some grade 6s because so many factors come into it. A grade 4 might just be a grade 6-in-waiting, after all

Anyone who is graded 4-6 is considered a competent teacher - but just as someone who passes their driving test is considered safe to drive unsupervised (and we all know how wrong that can be), so the ADI grade doesn't say anything about how an instructor conducts him/herself on a day to day basis.

It's not a perfect system, unfortunately. But then, what is?