Driving lessons - instructor taking the rise?

A friend of mine failed five times with a nationwide driving school. She then booked lessons with the man who taught my older two and passed after a few lessons. This was in the 80s.

She found that the first teachers would direct her on to large roundabouts then start firing directions at her. My children’s instructor would get her to park somewhere quiet then explain to her where she needed to position herself to get safely on and off the roundabout, sometimes sketching diagrams and checking she understood.

I don't think the instructor is unreasonable; before doing manoeuvres s/he needs to feel confident that the learner is comfortable with the car and all aspects of hazard perception in a range of weathers, sunshine, glare, darkness, wind and town/country driving. Unless you can't stand the thought of driving in your car with a learner, I would try to find the money for the insurance and go out with him. We gave our children £500 each towards the cost of lessons/theory test/driving test (which was a stretch for us, particularly as we have five children). However, I also did a lot of driving practice with them in our car, and that definitely helped them with their confidence.

knspol

I don't think 2 hr lessons are always a good thing. I had several of these and it seemed only about half of the time was spent actually driving and the rest of the time listening to the instructor rabbit on and mostly not about driving. At the time I didn't have the confidence to complain.

My driving instructor used to start her pupils on 1 hour lessons and then require us to move to two hour blocks so that we could learn to concentrate for longer and drive further. We very rarely stopped driving during lessons unless she was prepping me for a new manoevre or I had done something really badly. The way she worked was that all rule of road/Highway code stuff had to be done outside of lessons and yes she would check I knew it while I was driving. I wasn't in anyway a natural driver and had a bad experience with the first instructor I had that put me off for years so I had that to overcome first. Passed second time of testing in my early 40's

My DH is a driving instructor and the average time for a 40yr old to learn to drive is around 50 hours (plus private practice). Unfortunately, the older we get the longer it takes.

Sounds about right. Some people just take longer with the basics and a driving instructor worth his salt won’t try to rush someone who is not ready.

I think it depends where you live as to how long your lessons need to be.
Back in 1963...!! when I learned to drive, I had to travel to King's Lynn which, although 20 miles away, that was where the nearest driving schools & the test centre was.
Therefore, I had to get to KL on the bus, or occasionally my Dad took me, then I had a 1 hour lesson at a time. (I had 20 hours at £1 each) (I was an apprentice earning £2:50 per week).

In 1989, & in 1997, when our own DC were learning, & very recently, when our DGD took her lesson & test, they were all picked up from home, it would have taken at least an hour to get to & from the city that they were to take their tests.
So they had plenty of on road general practice to & fro, plus an hour in the city, & thus needing 2 hours in total.

I read somewhere that it was reckoned one driving lesson for every year of your life. So that could make 40 lessons. Depends on the learner. Your son could ask to move on and try new manoeuvres couldn't he?

Well I assumed that but the OP says 10 lessons

I think it's quite obvious that £285 is for 10 HOURS of lessons, i.e. £28.50 per hour. No driving instructor would work for under £15 and hour.
It's strange reading all the responses about reversing around corners and 3 point turns etc. (all of which I had to do on my test). Things have moved on considerably. Part of the test is following a route on a sat nav, parallel parking, reversing into a designated space in a car park and gone are the 3 point turn and reversing around corners.

We don't know if he's had 10 hours in total (5 sessions of 2 hours) or 10 x 2 hour lessons which is 20 hours.

If it's £28 for TWO hours I don't understand how the instructor can afford to do it!

Please come back PinkCakes and let us know how this is resolved!

I don't think 2 hr lessons are always a good thing. I had several of these and it seemed only about half of the time was spent actually driving and the rest of the time listening to the instructor rabbit on and mostly not about driving. At the time I didn't have the confidence to complain.

He's 40 and only had 10 2hour lessons I was in my 20s when learning and told to expect to need one and a half lessons for every year of life before being ready for a test

Jaxie

I was absolutely hopeless when learning to drive in my thirties. I needed to learn so I could get to university as a mature student, or I should have given up I found it so stressful. My instructor, a grandmother, told me that doctors and other intelligent people took longest to learn as they took in too much interference from their surroundings. I had 37 lessons in the end and passed at the second test. Perhaps your son isn’t getting enough practice between lessons.

Jaxie My husband said the same as your instructor that the more intellectual pupils invariably took longer to learn, as if their minds were too busy with 'higher' things. Over the years his pupils included several doctors, lecturers, two ambassadors, an astro physicist (!), three pop stars and a footballer - a mixed bag. But his favourites were usually Mr or Mrs Smith/Brown/Bloggs who really needed to drive and paid attention and tried their hardest. It was a job he loved and ex-pupils still contacted him long after he retired to enquire about lessons for their GC and GGC.

I was 38 when I passed my test in 1988 after 3 instructors and over a year's teaching. We all have different aptitudes. The third (& successful) instructor got me doing coordination exercises which helped. Thank goodness, as I had it was in the contract of my new job that I had to get my driving licence within a year!

I was absolutely hopeless when learning to drive in my thirties. I needed to learn so I could get to university as a mature student, or I should have given up I found it so stressful. My instructor, a grandmother, told me that doctors and other intelligent people took longest to learn as they took in too much interference from their surroundings. I had 37 lessons in the end and passed at the second test. Perhaps your son isn’t getting enough practice between lessons.

As the wife of a driving instructor, I feel I can respond with a bit of insight. It takes an average of 40 hours tuition (for a complete novice) to pass a test in the UK. £28/hr is actually on the less expensive side these days. If you think it’s expensive, think about getting in a taxi for an hours journey, how much would it cost? Also, driving forwards is about road craft, anticipation of oncoming vehicles, stopping, starting, hill starts, roundabouts and so much more. I believe the AA are pretty good at what they do with a pretty standardised way of teaching. Once he has mastered the basics he will then go on to learn the manoeuvres needed to pass a test.

I think 2hour lessons when you first start driving is too long. Start with an hour, and when you get more experienced and coming upto the test up it to 2hrs. You are probably expecting too much as he has only had five lessons.

I think it depends on the pupil, degree of nerves, their capacity to learn new things, commit to memory the tasks and gain their confidence. A car is a dangerous weapon and in the wrong hands is lethal.

They do say that you need a driving lesson for every year of your age. So when you get to forty you need roughly 40 lessons. I have offered to pay for my granddaughters to have driving lessons when they reach 17. I think when your young you pick things up quicker.

I don’t think PinkGates is complaining about the cost, but on the fact that her son has done so little on his lessons. Perhaps as you booked the lessons you should ask the instructor (or the company he works for) why this is so.

Well this has set me thinking, I am pretty sure I was paying 17/6 per lesson in 1967 and it took me absolutely ages to get to grips with it so I doubt we did reverse driving and uphill starts for a while. In actual fact when being taught to reverse around a corner I was told to line the kerb up with a letter on the rear screen. I never did understand what he meant and would simply guess! My own children were given £200 for their lessons and both managed to pass without adding any more . Your son will get there eventually and if slower than a seventeen year old, so what.? Better to learn correctly.

Pinkcakes
I would say that the price of your sons lessons is about average at the moment and cheaper than many. As others have said he will have learned a lot more than he realises even doing just 'straight driving', and of course he will have had to make left and right turns, starts & stops, signalling etc etc.

My husband was a driving instructor for over 30 years and a very good one. Almost all his pupils were recommended to him and he often taught more than one generation of families. His oldest pupil was 89 and she passed first time! He often told pupils he could teach them to pass the test, or he could teach them to drive well and become good, confident drivers.

We too have a 40 year old son who doesn't drive, and doesn't want to, because taking tests/exams of any kind terrifies him. Hence he left school with very few exam results. He took lessons about 12 years ago but when he was ready for the Test he 'chickened out'.

In my husband's experience older people just need more lessons and often their progress is slower. On a one hour lesson it might take them 15 minutes to relax and familiarise themselves again with the handling of the car. Then the learning process begins in earnest, but during the last 10-15 minutes their concentration wanes as they begin to tire. Two hours is a long time to concentrate on multi-tasking which is what driving is! Two hour lessons are often better reserved for nearer the Test date when they are more competent and relaxed and can enjoy a longer drive while their instructor observes and picks up on any faults that need to be dealt with. Your son could try having two one-hour lessons a week to see if it suits him better. His instructor may then devote one of the lessons to manouvering etc.

I wish him luck!

When my children were learning to drive I took them out every evening to practice. Some nights I wasn’t popular because they had other plans for their time!! But they both passed first time.

I started with AA many years ago, probably an entirely different set up now, but you were allocated an instructor rather than choosing one. Unless you went to them in the city centre, the previous learner picked you up and you dropped them off somewhere convenient! It wasn’t the driver’s own business, they joined the AA pool of drivers. They had a starter course which was generally cheaper than self-employed driving instructors. I never booked again when my instructor said she had put one learner’s spectacles under the back wheels to make her do a proper hill start! I found a local self-employed instructor I liked and we discussed progress and any problems I had with his tuition etc. It took ages for me to learn to drive and I did ask lots of questions but I was competent when I took my test and passed first time. I would move him to a local driving instructor with good recommendations.

Your DS is 40 and now learning to drive. As he has left it later in life perhaps he has anxiety about learning hence not progressing as quickly as you'd expect a teenager. He needs to have feedback on his progress before you can pass comment.