Category - ADI

I just noticed someone found this site on the search term “adi’s lack of pupils 2010”.

I’m not noticing any lack myself. I noticed a distinct reduction in new pupils between April-September 2008 (and yes, I do mean 2008), but from October 2008 it skyrocketed, and the whole of 2009 was very busy. I’m still busy right now, picking up typically 1-2 new pupils a week.

The snow affected lessons, of course. One pupil decided she would wait until it cleared up before she started lessons again, but others revelled in driving in the harsh conditions. I suppose some people who might have planned on starting lessons decided against it until the weather got better, but others seem not to have considered the weather at all and want to learn to drive. Pupils, after all, are like the phases of the moon. They are forever changing.

Having said that, the world does not revolve around me and I know that a lot of other instructors are having a hard time – and have been in that position for quite a while. So why might that be?

The first thing to remember is that whatever is the direct cause of not having enough work today is probably not the same direct cause that perhaps resulted in (for example) lack of work last summer, or in 2008, or 2007, and so on. What happens in the space between someone having an ADI badge and pupils wanting lessons is extremely complicated. Plenty of people think they know the answer, but they don’t – because as I just explained, there is no single answer. It is different for everyone, and it is different every time it happens.

Let’s just consider some of the factors which could be involved.

We’re In A Recession

Shops are closing every day (well, last year they were). Entire businesses are disappearing. People are on short time… You could go on and on. Anyone who thinks that this isn’t affecting people and their ability to pay for driving lessons – particularly in some areas of the country - is an idiot.

It does have a positive side, in that being able to drive is another string in the bow of someone looking for work, so they may put learning to drive as a fairly high priority if they still have funds. I’ve had a few of these myself, so I know it can be a factor – but in really depressed areas it might not be as significant a factor as it is here in the Midlands.

It’s Winter

Some instructors insist that it always goes quiet “at this time of year”. Well, maybe it does for them – so we can’t dismiss it as a possible factor. Personally, I only ever find the Christmas weeks (very) and maybe the first week or two (slightly) in the New Year quieter than the surrounding periods.

It’s Summer

Yep. You hear this one, too. In my own experience you will get a few who go away for an extended period. Even several people going away for a couple of weeks around the same time can rip your diary to shreds if it is already lightweight, but generally people seem to like taking lessons in the summer. However, see the next section for another reason why summer can hit you hard.

Bloody Students

If your clientele is primarily sourced from the Universities and colleges, then once their exams are finished and they go home your work just about dries up from that source (Unis especially). You have to wait until October for it to start picking up again, and it doesn’t pick up immediately… they have to get settled in, finish playing silly buggers, and wait for the colder dark nights to come before they start thinking about driving.

I got caught out with this one year, but I now make sure to the best of my ability that my pupil base isn’t entirely composed of Uni students over the summer. Up to a point you don’t have much choice (unless you turn people away just for being students, which would be stupid), and some years it is worse than others, but it shows the perils of concentrating on just the Universities with your advertising.

On the flip side of this, you do get a few students who start learning when they get home for the summer (although this can be affected by going on holiday, and the fact they stop again when they go back to Uni come October – but 4 months is still a long time to have them).

How Many?

In some places there are a lot of instructors. South Yorkshire is famous for it. And if you believe some of the scare stories numbers are still increasing as people try to earn the oft-mentioned £30,000 by doing as little as possible for it. Personally, I think the danger is overstated – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a factor to be considered in some areas. Obviously, too many instructors looking for work in a depressed area is likely to result in disappointment for some.

Where Are You?

There is a big difference between people living in the South East and those living in the North East or North West (or South Yorkshire, and parts of Scotland and Wales) in terms of employment and disposable income. There’s a big difference between the South East and the South West in terms of population density. In other words: everywhere is different from everywhere else for one reason or another – but if you cover a poor area, with high unemployment, and a reputation for low hourly lesson rates and stacks of ADIs all seeking work, or perhaps where you were the only instructor in a rural area but another two have appeared recently, you might find work taking a downturn.

Totally Independent

Driving instructors are all self-employed (there are a couple of elitist organisations which target affluent people and who, in some cases, might pay their instructors a salary – but they are in a tiny, tiny minority). Instructors either operate completely independently (e.g. Arnold Smith’s Driving School, consisting of Arnold Smith and one car), or through a franchise (e.g. BSM, AA, local school, etc. – all operating more than one car).

An instructor with a franchise will have the franchise’s marketing machine behind him to generate pupils. The effectiveness of this machine can vary from huge to bugger all use… and it is also prey to the same fluctuations already mentioned. Arguably, the larger and more ‘national’ the franchise, the smaller the effects of some of the various causes of fluctuations are likely to be – but then again, it is quite possible a small local franchise has its own marketing down to a fine art, though not all of them do. This is where risk enters the equation (and we’re not going into that here).

If an instructor is not with a franchise he has to advertise and make his own marketing machine. This can take many forms ranging from sitting outside the local school at lunch times or sticking postcards in the chip shops’ and newsagents’ walls… all the way up to whole page adverts in Yellow Pages and local newspapers. It can be cheap or very expensive – and it can be effective or a total waste of money (the amount spent is not automatically proportional to the amoung of work generated).

So what does all this mean? And bear in mind I am not offering a quick fix – just an explanation…

Well, any one instructor could either be fully booked or totally without work depending on how he has developed his business and how external circumstances have settled around him. Two ADIs living in the same street could have vastly different workloads depending on how long they have been doing this, what hours they cover, what days of the week they work, what kind of people they are, and so on. It is possible for the longer serving ADI to be the one without work. It is possible for the least “pleasant” ADI to have the most work. So it is pointless trying to emulate other people and expecting work to roll in: it doesn’t work like that. But yes, some people are suffering heavily at the moment. Any ADI is subject to any or all of the above factors (and there could be plenty of others I haven’t mentioned here).

New instructors especially may be totally useless at marketing their businesses – and yet these are the ones most likely to decide to become totally independent and not use a franchise as soon as they qualify.

The bottom line is that if you do the right things for your own circumstances you can only hope for the best – but with the knowledge that you really did give it your best shot . But if you don’t know what you are doing and just try to cruise along, the risk of failure is higher. In this latter case, you will only have yourself to blame .

I saw this one in the papers at the weekend.

Geraldine Tavares was caught speeding 13 times in 2 months by the same Gatso camera. What makes it worse was that she was doing it in her mother’s car - which appears to have been one of those Motability-funded cars – and, as a result, her mother has had the car confiscated because the offences mean she is in breach of the terms of the agreement which allows her to have it!

As well as the 13 offences mentioned, Tavares was accused of 17 more (if I understand the report correctly). The prosecutor said he would only go ahead with four of them as they were a sufficient sample for the magistrates to make a decision. Of these four, she was clocked at 46, 48, and twice at 61mph on the same 30mph stretch of road in Wednesfield, West Midlands, all at around 4am.

She said she was tired.

Tavares was banned for two years and fined £100. Her disabled mother will have to wait two years before she can have the car back.

Tavares should have her licence taken away permanently! Just like the idiots who get towed behind cars in the snow who don’t think of what could happen to innocent bystanders, just their own stupid enjoyment, Tavares gave no consideration to what she could have done to other people by driving like that so frequently.

This is interesting. I wrote recently about how BSM has changed its Bad Weather Policy – or rather, abolished it – for its franchisees, right in the middle of the heaviest snow for decades.

I’ve just been informed that the AA, which didn’t have a bad weather policy in its agreement as far as I know, has decided to defer £100 of the franchise fee for the first week after Christmas until later in the year to help instructors over the worst of the current very extreme weather. They’re spacing out the deferred payment over four weeks during March 2010. They even have an option to refuse the arrangement if the franchisee doesn’t need it.

Without commenting too much, there is a very interesting but apparent difference in the way franchisees are treated on display here.

Worth pointing out, as well, that I have had a number of search enquiries for “bsm going down”. I think this illustrates clearly the mentality of some people out there. Frighteningly, some of them are driving instructors!

EDIT 22/12/2010: There is a December 2010 update to this story here . The AA has again deferred franchise payments to cover the worst of the winter weather that we are again experiencing across the country.

I think I’ve figured out what the Nottingham City and County Councils are doing to conserve rock salt. Take a look at this video clip from yesterday (Saturday).

See how one side of the road is clear, and yet the other side is covered in snow. Also notice how in some places it is obviously treated, but then it suddenly changes again to untreated. Clever, isn’t it? Just grit half the road!

The problem is that driving from treated to untreated then back again is extremely dangerous for anyone, let alone for inexperienced drivers.

EDIT 4/1/2010: Just watching BBC Nottingham News and they are laying into the Notts and Leics councils for their appalling performances in gritting roads.

Specifically, roads in Mapperley and Carlton in Nottingham are actually closed off. This is in the middle of a large city, where the primitive minds of the council are determined to force everyone else to live in the Stone Age!

I had to pick a pupil up from one of these roads today and there has been absolutely no attempt whatsoever to keep them open. It is sheet ice everywhere. It seems that there was a further dusting of snow last night in some areas, and Mapperley had most of it – and that was on top of a temperature of between -4°C and -5°C when I went out this morning.

On the TV, the council said that on roads where they can’t grit they provide gritting bins. The reporter showed quite clearly that these bins are empty, and said “what’s the point in providing them if they aren’t filled up? ” The programme shows roads littered with abandoned cars, chocked with bricks, which the owners simply haven’t been able to move. One young girl crashed into a wall while they were filming.

I have seen no more than 3 or 4 gritting lorries since the snow began before Christmas – and I am out on the road a lot. I saw dozens more of them back in February last year.

To make matters worse, heavy snow is forecast for Nottingham tomorrow.