The BBC local news has covered the first day of tests being conducted out of Nottingham Trent University. No big deal, except for a couple of things on the report worth mentioning
First of all, tests were clearly going out with snow and ice visible on the roads (the Trent car park in particular). I’m pretty certain that on any other day – without the cameras being there – they probably wouldn’t have. Tests were even cancelled for fog last week (and that’s a first for me).
The other interesting thing was the “driving instructor” they interviewed (I used inverted commas there because a proper driving instructor 
would possess business sense whilst simultaneously knowing what they were talking about)..
In response to the BBC’s statement that the numbers of young people taking tests is falling, this stupid idiot claimed that the reason for this was the cost of the theory and practical tests. In particular, by stating that the practical test “costs £65” (Rosemary Thew was also interviewed and pointed out that these prices have not changed for several years).
In actual fact, the practical test DOESN’T cost £65. It costs £62. An instructor should know that, but this one” couldn’t even get such an important detail right – and she did it right in front of the cameras!
Now that she’d identified overall cost as a “problem” to the mummies and daddies out there watching in middle-class, local TV-land, she provided inaccurate data to support her claims.
The simple fact is that the cost of the two tests is less than 10% of the total cost of learning to drive for a typical learner. Over 90% of the expense is on driving lessons. So, having gotten everyone’s attention, and so identifying that costs of learning to drive are “too high”, what does she now suggest? That we ADIs should all cut our lesson prices to reduce the expense of learning to drive?
This woman typifies what is wrong with this industry. Too many idiots are allowed into it who see it as a philanthropic mission instead of a job, and who try to develop mother-child relationships with clients. Get it into your thick skulls: if someone can’t afford driving lessons, then they simply don’t have driving lessons. That’s it. End of story.
Learning to drive IS expensive. Buying an hour of someone’s time for anything is also expensive. That expense isn’t a sign that the person selling the time is charging too much!
Ineffective instructors who don’t have to pay for their car, who do the job to use up some spare time (“now that the kids have left home”), and whose losses are subsidised by the main breadwinner of the house do not represent this industry at all. By opening their stupid mouths on TV they are damaging it further all the time.