How To Find A Good Driving Instructor

Know someone who's learnt to drive recently? Ask them about their experiences...

Ask members of your family and friends who they learnt to drive with - personal recommendation is probably the best way to find a reliable, punctual and patient driving instructor.

The sort of driving instructor who gets recommendations from happy former pupils, may be so busy that they do not need to advertise in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, so don't be put off if you've never heard of them!

Really good driving instructors tend not to need to go in for special offers, cars with gimmick-laden signwriting or expensive advertising as pupils come to them, rather than them having to make a big noise to let people know they exist!

A busy driving instructor is busy for a reason..they're good at their job!

A fully qualified, experienced, driving instructor is also more likely to cost less overall even if their hourly rate for driving lessons seems a bit higher than the "special offers" and "bargain deals" you find advertised in local newspapers or via flyers. This is because their experience and knowledge means that they tend to get their students to the standard needed for the driving test in significantly fewer lessons than less experienced driving instructors.

If you come across someone who learnt to drive with a large driving school who have lots of instructors, make sure you find out the name of the specific instructor who taught them and make sure that you get that particular instructor!

It seems obvious, but it doesn't follow that ALL the driving instructors who work for a particular driving school are good just because one is personally recommended!

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Not all people who look like driving instructors actually ARE driving instructors...watch out for the cowboys...and even worse, the criminals...

ANYONE can put a sign on the top of their car, fit a set of dual controlled pedals and equip themselves with some official looking training materials in order to make themselves look like a genuine professional driving instructor.

You might even think "So what?" if they're offering bargain deals on cheap driving lessons...but what are they going to be teaching you, how are they going to be teaching it and more worrying, what sort of a person are they?

Without the regulation and safeguards put in place by the government run driver training industry regulator, The Driving Standards Agency, you could find yourself;

* taught poorly or incorrectly,
* being taught by someone whose car insurance does not cover them for teaching learner drivers - leading to BIG problems for you in the event of an accident while you were driving the car,
* at risk from someone who may have a history of criminal activity such as fraud or sexual offences.

Anyone giving driving instruction in exchange for money (or money's worth such as so-called "gifts or gratuities") MUST by LAW, be registered with the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) and MUST display a valid driving instructors licence on their vehicle whilst giving driving tuition.

The DSA is the Government Department which regulates the driver training industry. They check that anyone wishing to become a driving instructor is suitable to work one to one with the public by means of enhanced criminal record checks, they administer the driving instructor qualifying exams and regularly test all driving instructors to ensure that their standards of teaching are satisfactory - if they are not, remedial action is taken, which can lead to the instructor being struck off the Register Of Approved Driving Instructors.

In 2007, there were in the region of 44,000 people on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors.

A fully qualified Approved Driving Instructor (ADI) must display their licence (green octagon) on the windscreen of his/her tuition vehicle at all times when giving driving tuition in exchange for payment.

If the instructor is a trainee (Potential Driving Instructor/PDI), they must display their licence (pink triangle) on the windscreen of his/her tuition vehicle at all times when giving driving tuition in exchange for payment.

The reverse side of the licence (the bit visible from inside the vehicle) contains the following details;
A photograph of the driving instructor
The name of the driving instructor
The date of issue and the expiry date of the licence
The driving instructors unique registration number (ADI number)

It is illegal for anyone other than a DSA licenced driving instructor to give driving instruction in exchange for money or "money's worth" (i.e someone giving a driving lesson then accepting something other than money in return, such as "gifts", gratuities or services).

You can check if someone offering driving tuition is registered at the ADI branch of the Driving Standards Agency:
Email: ADIReg@dsa.gsi.gov.uk
Phone: 0115 901 2618

IF THERE'S NO LICENCE DISPLAYED ASK TO SEE IT - the instructor may simply have forgotten to stick it back on the windscreen after washing the car...or it may mean that the person you are paying to teach you is acting illegally...

...like this uninsured and illegal fake driving instructor - BBC - Fake driving instructor sentenced

You can report anyone you suspect of being an illegal driving instructor by contacting the Driving Standards Agency;
Phone: 02920 581155
Email: integrity.team@dsa.gsi.gov.uk

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One of the Driving Standards Agency requirements to be an instructor is that the person must be "fit and proper" in order for their name to be entered into the Register of Approved Driving Instructors (ADI).

In 2007, the DSA made it compulsory for all new applicants to the ADI Register to undergo an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check. At the same time a programme to CRB check all EXISTING driving instructors was commenced - this check is not yet complete at the time of writing (January 2009).

It is always worth checking whether a driving instructor has had their CRB check done. Recent media reports illustrate why e.g.;
Driving instructor's driving ban
'Groping' driving instructor packed 12in carrot down his trousers

* Please note that the media reports linked to above are extreme cases.

The overwhelming majority of driving instructors are ordinary, decent human beings, who go out of their way to provide a courteous and professional service to their customers.

There are good people and not so good people in every profession! Knowing that your driving instructor is fully licenced and has a recent CRB check, will go some way to giving you piece of mind that you're not getting in a car with someone like the two people mentioned in the press articles above...

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The price of driving lessons.

Neither cheap nor expensive necessarily = "good"...the price a driving instructor charges for their lessons is only one of the factors you should consider when making your choice of driving instructor...

Learning to drive is undeniably expensive, but unlike buying say, a car or a fridge, you CAN'T try to shop around to find the cheapest price for a particular model.

A driving lesson from one driving instructor is not exactly the same as a driving lesson from another driving instructor, so you CANNOT make comparisons or base your choice on price alone as you are not comparing like with like....

Basing your choice of driving instructor purely on which one is cheapest can lead to BIG problems.

I often encounter people who want a driving instructor who is "good and cheap"...unfortunately for them, those two adjectives rarely go hand in hand when it comes to finding a driving instructor as many people find out to their cost :(

Prices for driving lessons vary throughout the country but most areas have an average price which you will soon become aware of if you make some enquiries.

If you find an instructor or school offering lessons for a price significantly lower than the area average, be wary...cheap prices are a sales gimmick to attract customers...ask yourself why they are so desperate to attract customers - it could be that the instructor is newly qualified, gone solo and is trying to build up a pupil base from scratch (everyone has to start somewhere after all!)...or on the other hand it could be that the instructor is unpopular and has problems keeping enough pupils to charge the market rate (and you probably don't want to find out why they're unpopular...) - or even worse, lessons are cheap because the "instructor" is not qualified and therefore illegal (more about that sort of person further down this section)...

REMEMBER: "there's no such thing as a free lunch..." or put it another way, "Supermarket Own Brand Cola" is brown fizzy liquid...but it's not the same as "Coke" or "Pepsi" is it???? ;)

There are driving instructors who are reliable, have first class teaching skills, friendly personalities, lots of experience, good pass rates and loads of satisfied customers. These types of instructors are busy and they're busy for a good reason - they do a GREAT job...and because of their experience, their customers tend to learn to drive successfully in fewer lessons and are well equipped for driving safely on their own. These types of driving instructors have good reputations and their pupils tend to recommend them to others who want to learn to drive. This means that they do not need to advertise themselves very much, if at all and it also means that they do not have to resort to cut-price offers for their driving lessons in an attempt to get work - their reputation does this for them to a large extent...

On the other hand there are driving instructors who don't provide such a good customer service and so do not get recommendations passed on from their pupils. They find themselves short of work and offer cut-price driving lessons. It costs this type of instructor the same sort of money to actually give a driving lesson as it does the non-price cutting instructor, but because they are offering the lesson cheaply, they make little or no money from it...so they have to reduce their expenses to increase their income.

I have heard several horror stories from people who have had so called "bargain" cut-price driving lessons. I know of people who hadn't driven the car AT ALL after 4 lessons. All 4 lessons had been spent sitting in the car with the instructor, engine turned off and parked in a car park with the instructor TALKING about how to drive and nothing else. I have heard of people who have done nothing but drive round and round a housing estate in a half mile circuit for lesson after lesson...is that really teaching anyone to drive? Not by my definition...

There's a BIG difference between learning how to make a car move and how to stop it and learning how to actually DRIVE...driving means getting out onto different sorts of roads, different traffic conditions, all kinds of weather and as many unique situations as possible to prepare you for what driving independently is really like...NOT driving around in circles or sitting in car parks to save the instructor's overheads on a cheap driving lesson.

I know that we're in a recession and that money is tight for many people but driving is a skill for life, so you have to be able to be clear about what is real value for money and what is a false economy...



Conversely, very expensive driving schools don't necessarily guarantee either quality or good value...some of the big national driving schools who also operate driving instructor training programmes use a very high proportion of partly qualified trainee driving instructors teaching on a short term trainee licence...and unless you ask, they rarely bother to tell you that you are paying full price for a trainee instructor...

Trainee driving instructors have only passed the first two out of the three driving instructor qualifying exams.

After they have passed a Theory Test and an advanced driving test, trainee driving instructors can apply for a six month temporary licence to give driving instruction in exchange for payment. However, at this point, they have not passed the hardest part of the qualification process, the "Test Of Instructional Ability". The Driving Standards Agency set rigorous standards for the "Test Of Instructional Ability" and statistics show that the pass rate for this exam is very low - only around 28% of people pass (source: Department for Transport website.

So, while a trainee driving instructor may well be a good driver, they may not necessarily be a good teacher...do you really want to PAY to be a guinea pig to help someone pass an exam?...

"Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware..."

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Asking a driving instructor about their test pass rate may seem like the best way of establishing whether they're any good or not....but unfortunately it's not that straightforward!

The "driving instructor pass rates" question is meaningless for all practical purposes, as statistics can mean anything you want them to mean!

I've heard driving instructors quote a "100% Pass Rate", justified on the basis that "everyone passes eventually". Is it true? Of course not...some people give up learning and never pass...some people pass first time and some pass after several attempts, so how do you measure a "pass rate"??????

A "pass rate" is only relevant if everyone is interpreting statistics in the same way...but they don't...

Also you have no way of checking whether the test pass rate you've been quoted is true or exagerrated. I hate to say this, but some people in this world don't necessarily always tell the truth...

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Do you get the full attention of the driving instructor one to one...or will there be someone else in the car too?..

"Piggybacking" is the situation where you are not the only learner in the driving instructor's car...

The idea is that one learner driver drives the car, while another learner (or two) sit in the back seat, listening to the driving instructor and watching the driver. The learner drivers take it in turns to drive and observe.

Sometimes the arrangement is that towards the end of their lesson, one learner drives to pick up the instructor's next pupil and this pupil then drives the first pupil home - this way there is an additional pupil in the car for only part of the lesson.

"Piggybacking" driving lessons used to be very common a few years ago, but is pretty rare these days.

From a driving instructors point of view, the advantages of this system are that it cuts down on the time they spend out on the road teaching, and cuts down on their overheads as they do not have any unpaid travelling time between one pupils lesson ending and the next lesson beginning. It also means that they can deliver a lesson on a particular subject to more than one pupil at a time.

The disadvantages are that most learner drivers don't like it! Learning to drive can be pretty stressful anyway and having a stranger watching your every move can be offputting and embarrassing. This is why nowadays, very few driving instructors piggyback!

Before you book up lessons, it's always worth asking whether your lessons will be one-to-one or whether there will be another learner in the car though, as there are still a few driving instructors out there who think piggybacking is a good thing ;)

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Ring around several driving schools or independent driving instructors.

Do they sound approachable, friendly and helpful on the phone? If the instructor seems grumpy, cagey, rude or disinterested during a telephone call, then the chances are they'll be the same (or worse) when you're stuck in a car with them on a driving lesson.

How easy is it to get hold of someone on the phone if you have a query or a problem? Some "one-man band" driving instructors teach all day and will only be available to return messages after they finish teaching for the day (which may be quite late). There's nothing wrong with that and many instructors work this way with minimal problems, but if you are happier knowing you can get hold someone to talk to if you need to, this may be an area to think about...

Has the school/instructor got a website? Many instructors try to put their personality or school ethos across by having their website design reflect this.

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The Driving Standards Agency regularly check the standards of tuition given by all driving instructors and assign them a grade which they retain until it's time for their next check.

That grade is based solely upon a driving examiner observing ONE HOUR of driving tuition given by an individual driving instructor every four or more YEARS.

The check is nothing more than a snapshot of performance and takes into account NOTHING apart from what the examiner sees on that particular driving lesson. There's no regard given to how many people have successfully been taught to drive by that instructor or how their students regard them. There's no interview, written tests or other performance related reports taken into consideration. If the driving instructor is nervous (and it's human nature to be nervous when someone is watching your every move), then that can affect the way they "perform" on the check lesson and may mean that what the examiner sees bears little or no resemblance to how they usually teach or interact with their students.

To many it seems like a crazy way to assess how well someone can REALLY do a job...

Yet, I often come across advice given to learner drivers telling them to ask for grades and only choose instructors who are grade 5 or 6.

But no-one ever asks other qualified professionals such as doctors, solicitors, plumbers etc what their "grade" is - so why should a fully qualified professional driving instructor be any different?

The qualification process to become a driving instructor is VERY challenging and involves not only the ability to drive to a very high standard, but also to teach to a very high standard.

Only about 6% of people who start training to be a driving instructor actually succeed in qualifying, that's how high the standard is.

Approved Driving Instructors (ADI's) have passed all three of the qualification exams required and that fact alone should negate any need for questions about grades.

As of February 2009 the total number of driving instructors in the UK broken down by grade is as follows;

Grade 1 - 0%
Grade 2 - 0.09%
Grade 3 - 0.76%
Grade 4 - 51.32%
Grade 5 - 31.03%
Grade 6 - 5.99%
Ungraded - 10.81% (newly qualified instructors are officially ungraded until their first DSA "check test" is done)

Any driving instructor whose grade is less than a 4 is subject to further checks by the DSA and if the standard of their tuition fails to improve within a very short period of time, they risk having their driving instructor licence withdrawn.

Ask about instructor grades if you want, but do bear in mind that as with test pass rates, you'll find some driving instructors who tell LIES...and unfortunately, you have no way of checking whether the grade you are told is the grade they really are...

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Driving instructors must pass a difficult three-part examination to fully qualify as an Approved Driving Instructor (ADI), and they have to maintain the high standards required by the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) by passing periodic tests.

Fully qualified instructors are called Approved Driving Instructors (ADI's)

Trainee driving instructors are called Potential Driving Instructors (PDI's)

A PDI can apply for a short-term licence to give driving tuition in exchange for payment after they have passed the second part of the three qualifying exams. This licence is only granted for a six month period (but in some special circimstances can occasionally be extended for a longer time period by the DSA). So as you can see, they cannot teach as a PDI for very long.

It is important to note that a PDI has not yet passed the third exam which is a test of their instructional ability. The only exams they have passed are driving theory and an advanced driving test...so they have proved they can drive and know the rules and regulations...but are they any good at teaching?

In a recent article published on the Driving Instructors Association (DIA) website, the difficulty in passing all three of the exams was highlighted. According to this article "fewer than five out of every hundred starters manage to make it to the end"...in other words less than five out of every hundred people who start training to become a driving instructor manage to qualify by passing the three exams needed to become an ADI (source: Driving Instructors Association "Money For Cold Hope"...yet many of these people who never make it have been allowed to give driving tuition to members of the public by gaining a PDI licence...

Training PDI's is BIG business - you may have seen the adverts on the TV stating that there is a national shortage of driving instructors (there isn't...in fact in some parts of the country many instructors struggle to find enough work. A fall in the birth rate in the late 1980's and for much of the 1990's has also meant that there are now less young people learning to drive than there were 5 years ago...yet the numbers of ADI's has risen steadily each year). These glossy adverts make it all sound so easy and promise lots of money and flexible working hours etc. Lots of people believe what they hear and so there's lots of PDI's out there. As the cost of their training runs into several thousand pounds, many PDI's take up the option to teach on a trainee licence so that they can gain experience and earn money whilst doing so and thus recoup some of the thousands of pounds they have spent on their training...the truth behind all the glossy adverts is that qualifying as a driving instructor is VERY difficult and most people simply aren't suited to teaching other people to drive.

Over 95% of PDI's fail to qualify as driving instructors...

Many large national driving schools (including the market leader), use a very high proportion of PDI's to teach their pupils but most of these have a tendency not to tell their pupils that their instructor is not a qualified ADI (they aren't required to).

Teaching on a PDI licence gives the PDI invaluable experience but the level of supervision varies between training schools and some leaves a lot to be desired.

So ask whether your instructor will be a qualified ADI or a trainee PDI.

Learning with a PDI could leave you needing to change instructor if they do not pass their final exam before their short-term pink licence expires. They cannot then carry on teaching...

An ADI must display their green octagonal licence in the windscreen of their tuition vehicle at all times whilst giving paid tuition.

A PDI must display their pink/red triangular licence in the windscreen of their tuition vehicle at all times whilst giving paid tuition.

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A professional image and a clean, tidy and well presented driving instructor and vehicle is a pretty reliable indication that you are likely to get good customer service...

Ask whether the school or instructor follows the voluntary DSA Code of Practice For Approved Driving Instructors.

Also consider asking if they are members of any professional organisations such as the Driving Instructors Association (DIA), the Motor Schools Association (MSA), the ADI Federation etc.

Keep a look out for tuition vehicles. Do they look clean, well maintained and reasonably new, or are they shabby, old wrecks with L-plates precariously tied on to the bumper/s?

If you catch a glimpse of the instructor themselves inside the vehicle, do they appear to be anything less than clean and tidy, are they smoking (they shouldn't be as it's against the law!), are they on their mobile phone/making themselves a drink/eating their lunch/staring glassy-eyed out of the side window or doing anything else which might lead you to think that they aren't paying 100% of their attention to the pupil sitting in the drivers seat?

Does the driving school or driving instructor have a website? You can get a good idea of the personality and professionalism of a driving instructor by reading their website and often quite a lot of information about the instructor themselves, their experience, testimonials etc.

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Don't be afraid to ask the driving instructor relevant questions...but you need to know what you're asking and more importantly what the answers you get actually mean....

You may have seen long lists of suggested "things to ask about", including, "What are your pass rates?" and "What grade will my instructor be?"...a word of advice about those particular two questions though :)

The "driving instructor pass rates" question is meaningless for all practical purposes, as statistics can mean anything you want them to mean! We've heard driving instructors quote a "100% Pass Rate", justified on the basis that "everyone passes eventually". Is it true? Of course not...some people give up learning and never pass...some people pass first time and some pass after several attempts, so how do you measure a "pass rate"?????? A "pass rate" is only relevant if everyone is interpreting statistics in the same way...but they don't, so using a test pass rate as a basis for choosing an instructor is pretty pointless :D

Much the same can be said of the "Driving instructor grade" question. You wouldn't ask a doctor or a solicitor or a plumber or any other qualified professional person what their "grade" is would you?... so why ask a qualified driving instructor that question?

The qualification process to become a driving instructor is VERY challenging and involves not only the ability to drive to a very high standard, but also to teach to a very high standard. Approved Driving Instructors (ADI's) have passed all three of the qualification exams required and they are also regularly re-assessed by the Driving Standards Agency to ensure that the standards of their instruction remain consistently high. Newly qualified instructors aren't even graded at all...

Examples of better "relevant questions" include;

• do tuition vehicles have dual controls (and if you'll be learning to drive in the summer, air conditioning :) )?



• if you have any specific needs such as wanting a female instructor or an automatic vehicle etc, ask whether the driving school or instructor can supply your needs



• can you be picked up from one place and dropped off somewhere different (e.g picked up from work/college and dropped off at home etc)?



• are there any discounts available?



• can you have a reduced price introductory lesson to see how you get on with the instructor?



• how long are lessons?



• what is the lesson cancellation policy? (you may well be charged if you do not give adequate notice if you need to cancel a driving lesson so this question is well worth asking)



• will you be the only pupil in the car? (some instructors still "piggy-back" i.e pick up or drop off their next pupil during your lesson time...this is rare now thankfully but there are still some dinosaurs out there...see the section on "Piggybacking?" further up this page for more details)



• (this isn't a question as such, but you'll need to have asked some questions to find out!) - can you understand what the instructor is saying? It's vital that you can understand what you're being asked to do and be understood in return...

Further guidance on "relevant" questions you might like to ask can be found in the brand new section of this webpage - A Few More Things To Think About When Choosing A Driving Instructor!.

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Lots of professional organisations (including the DSA!) often pass on what they think is "helpful advice" to those trying to find a driving instructor. Unfortunately, although well meaning, the advice they offer can sometimes be misleading and/or irrelevant.

I asked Peter Cary, former Director of The ADI Federation and a fully qualified and very experienced driving instructor who specialises in teaching the disabled, nervous and those with learning difficulties to drive, what advice he would give to customers seeking a good driving instructor. Here's what he said;

"I believe that customers should be equipped with the "right questions" to ask.

The "right questions DO NOT include;

"What is your pass rate".

"What is your grade"

BUT should be....

1) Are you a fully qualified ADI? (Approved Driving Instructor)

It is possible to be taught by a PDI (Potential Driving Instructor) and to be honest some are very good, but unfortunately the vast majority never qualify as driving instructors.

29,000 people tried to become ADIs last year with just over 4,000 actually qualifying.

In fact in the case of one of the largest schools in the UK, almost half of their instructors are PDIs, easily recognised by a large red triangle being displayed on their ADI Licence displayed on the windscreen as apposed to the green octagon shown by a fully qualified ADI

2) How long have you been qualified?

A recently qualified ADI should be up to date with latest thinking, but may not have so much experience in teaching people to drive with various different techniques in helping clients to accomplish the task of driving.

3) Do you belong to a professional body?

Paying membership to one of the several bodies representing ADIs means they have the back up of a large organisation who can give them advice with problems they or their pupils may have with motoring law or the DSA.

4) Do you belong to any other road safety bodies?

A few instructors are members of bodies such as AIRSO (Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers) again demonstrating a strong commitment to improving driving for everybody.

5) Do you have any specialisms?

If the instructor teaches the more "challenging" members of society, the elderly, learning difficulties and disabled, they probably will have more patience than some who don't.

6) Do you have any extra qualifications?

You may not need some of the qualifications but the fact the ADI has gone out of his way to widen their knowledge shows that they have a commitment to their students

Some of the extra Qualifications they might have.

IAM/RoSPA membership
To belong to these organisations one has to pass a high standard of practical driving test.

Dip Di
This is a written exam in 5 parts that throughly tests the ADI knowledge in management of a driving school,car mechanics, motoring law, teaching techniques and of course driving theory, skills and procedures.

Banstead/ QEFH trained
This is a three day course devoted to teaching the disabled to drive, learning about "problems" the disabled may have and what aids are available to help overcome them.

City and Guilds 7307
This an adult teaching certificate that some colleges require before you can teach on the premises, but shows they have communication skills to impart their knowledge to others

Fleet Trainer
This is a voluntary register run by the DSA for ADIs to train FLH (Full Licence Holders) requiring an ADI to pass at a much higher standard than the basic ADI is required.

NDIS (National Driving Improvement Scheme)
This is as the name suggests a national scheme where drivers make an error of judgment, the police can offer a training course to improve their driving rather than taking the driver to court to be only fined and have points added to their licence, there are very few instructors selected to do this work.

SAFED (Safe And Fuel Efficient Driving)
This a government incentive to improve the driving of white van man there are approximately 320 ADIs out of a total of 42,000 ADIs doing this work.

There are more qualifications, but this should cover most of them.

You will be able to gauge what sort of instructor you are dealing with by the response you get to these questions, as most people don't know what to ask.

The DSA propose to make public the pass rate and grade of an instructor, which at first reading seems very useful information to make a subjective choice, however if you follow the thinking through you might not feel it's so useful.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics...

A) Grades
ADIs are graded 1 through to 6, six is the best grade, the vast majority of ADIs are grade 4.

With grades 3 and below the DSA will be taking action to remove them from the register if they do not improve very quickly.

However ADIs are graded by an examiner who sits in on ONE lesson and sees how they perform according to the DSA method of marking, we can all have a bad day, the examiner may have missed a key point in the lesson, it has happened that there has been personality clashes between ADI and examiner.

I know of many grade 4's that give wonderful training, make it fun for their clients and lots pass first time with them, I also know grade six instructors who shout and have a very short fuse with some of their students.

B) Pass Rates
The DSA used to send all ADIs their pass rates, but they gave up because no ADI ever agreed with the figures given by the DSA, there were instances of instructors who had been dead for over a year still getting pupils through the test - now thats what I call dedication!

Some instructors publish their pass rates, how are they working out their pass rate? Are they taking every customer on or are they "cherry picking"?

There is a recently formed driving school aiming at the top end of the public school market Eton, Harrow, etc and they are expecting their clients to have 4 times the average amount of lessons combined with plenty of private practice, I would be very disappointed if their pass rate was below 99.9%.

I believe if the pass rates are published it will hurt the more disadvantaged members of society as they will be turned away as "difficult" to teach and drag the pass rates of instructors down, or maybe even worse some instructors may take them on but have no intention of ever presenting them for a test.

Even though I specialise in this sector of the market and my pass rate is above the national average, if I thought it would effect potential clients considering me as an instructor, I would have to seriously consider if I would continue to accept them onto my books.

Raw statistics don't tell the whole story.

If you had a serious heart condition who would you prefer to treat you a surgeon whose patients had 20% survival rate or a surgeon with 99.9%?

The answer may seem obvious until you dig deeper, maybe the first surgeon specialises in the cases where the condition has progressed so far that no other person will attempt the operation, whilst the other specialises in "Ingrowing Toenails"!

As you can see there are lots of things to be considered when choosing an ADI.

Unfortunately most people think an ADI is an ADI and can be chosen on price alone, all the extra training I've listed above entails more cost and loss of earnings to an ADI so a more qualified ADI will normally be more expensive per lesson, but hopefully with a higher standard to training you should be better equipped to drive safely for life on the road.

The last question you should ask is
"When can you fit me in?" :) "

If you would like to find out more about Peter Cary, please see his website - Peter Cary, Driving Instructor - Specialising For Those With Disabilities Or Anxieties About Driving

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