Big Driving Schools
Here are some good and bad things about the big schools:
Good:
- New cars (usually under a year old)
- Choice of instructors (if you don't like the one they give you, just ask for another)
- Take credit cards (very handy!)
- Some kind of quality control (if they get enough complaints about an instructor, they usually do something about it)
Bad:
- They can be expensive
- Call centres are sales driven - they want to sell you as many lessons in one call as they can
- Tend to attract instructors who cannot make it as independents
- Some national schools employ 'pink' licence holders. These are student instructors who have not yet passed all their exams. Don't be taught by a 'pinky'!
- It's hard to get to talk to the instructor before your first lesson.
Most national driving schools have little or no interview with instructors before employing them! Hard to believe, I know. With some Nationals, all an instructor has to do is phone and pay the fee to be accepted as an instructor. As long as his/her grade is 4 or above, that will do. In our opinion, that's not good enough when you consider the fees they charge the pupils.
