Over the last few days I’ve been getting a monumental number of hits from Facebook (well, monumental compared to my usual traffic). When I tracked back it turned out most of them were coming from a group which is committed to opposing the Red Driving School.
Red Driving School Logo
One post caught my attention – it was concerning a link to a Welsh local documentary (a bit like Watchdog), called X-Ray. You can see the programme on BBC iPlayer until 1 March.
The segment in question starts at about 21 minutes 40 seconds (it’s the last story they covered).
Some chap had signed up to Red and was alleging that he had been promised this, that, and the other in the initial sales pitch, but that none of this turned out to be true. In particular, he was apparently told he would qualify in 16 weeks (the presenter clearly says he was told it could be completed in 16 weeks – not that it would). He alleges he was told that it would cost him £175 a week to work under a franchise with Red, but that on a pink (trainee) license this was actually £275 (the presenter clearly indicates that the offer is £175 after you qualify). He was also allegedly told he could train locally and that he would be guaranteed an unlimited number of pupils.
He seems like a decent enough chap, but his justification for becoming an ADI was that he’d been an instructor in the RAF for 25 years and loved teaching, and also enjoyed driving, so the two together “seemed ideal” and he could “enjoy it while earning some extra money”.
This is not the best justification for becoming a driving instructor – its just too… bland.
While I was doing a bit of research on this, I came across a posting by someone using the name “John Davids” on a discussion forum. The topic in question is again in opposition to Red Driving School, but “John Davids” appears to be contrary to the otherwise overwhelming opinion in that topic. Here is his post:
Isn’t it time you all got on with ur lives?A new company now own Red and all trainees
and staff can get on with their lives and hopefully, a
new company can move Red on where LVG couldn’t.But ****, we’ve heard it all before.Most if not all, colleges, training establishments that spend lots in staff, vehicles, training and development, intellectual property require payment upfront or how many people would fall for REAL scams where people offer training for a deposit then dissapear? You may remember this industry suffered terribly from this problem many years ago and professional trainers and training bodies were welcomed; I bet people likeyou ****, and **** *** et al would be on forums then, recommending “unsuspecting” folk look keep away from the scams and those that take your deposit an run!!? I wondered for a long long time why you, and ******* an **** *** and *** ****** and all the rest on facebook rant so vehemently and I have discovered many of you own or are linked to or work for competitors in he industry – just look at how many members on facebook are now offering “help and advise”, at a cost!Why do many of you also deter those that would make good adis so passionately? Because ****, as you have told us you are an adi and you don’t want anyone else moving in on your business!You are no better than those you despise.Just for information, Red no longer use finance to fund courses so your fears of terrible amounts of interest shoul no longer give you sleepless nights!
Also recent figures show that yes, whilst many adis do not earn 30k most use this industry not as the ‘bread winning income’ but as semi retirment or part time work around families etc and your cries of “those that do, are barely home” are pathetic! How many jobs where you earn 30k will you do ‘normal hours’? A 30k job, say at morrisons or b&q would require 60 hrs work, and years of working at minimum wage to get there, and professionalism and determination that MOST working people in this country simply do not have or want.
Millions of people undertake retraining on thousands of different courses in hundreds of different industries and unfortunatley, most people give up and never finish; not unlike adi training. The unfortunate thing is,
when it comes to this industry, 80% of us are SE, ie business men and women therefore we have a vested interested in any other company and their success- or failure and unfortunately many of you love to latch on to sob stories
about “scams” or “victims” as you know with enough bad press, some business will fall your way!I went to a red seminar, I wasn’t lied to, conned, scammed,
swizzed.I was never told I could “qualify” in 16 weeks! I ws told
I could complete my training quickly if I was free ALL the time!
Some trainees did get through very quickly, others took 2 years but many were only available ” every fourth Saturday” and then complained they had been lied too!!!!It was funny to read on facebook from the customer services
woman at red that most had nit complained to red? Yeah, it’s easier to whinge on a forum than admit your own doing has suddenly meant you now owe a course fee for a course you haven’t done much on yet!!My rant over, it has been fun reading all your posts but ****, and all the others, give it up now and let the LVG buyers do what the trainees paid for.John
You see how easy it is to create an illusion – any illusion – by selecting only what you want people to hear? On the one hand, the Welsh programme gives the impression that Red does lie and does misrepresent its offer. Yet here we have some guy who is obviously training through Red Driving School at the moment, and who makes it absolutely clear that he was only ever told the truth.
I don’t doubt for a second that the salesmen involved say different things, and that now and then one or two of them might get carried away with their sales pitch. But all of them? I think the problem lies elsewhere – in an area which no TV show (except possibly one with Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand hosting) dare go near. It’s the people who buy the product who are often the problem, not the people who sell it.
“John Davids” appears to know what he wants and why. He understands what is involved and that it won’t be handed to him on a plate. The nice old chap in the TV programme, though, just thought it would earn him a bit of pocket money and be enjoyable.
As I mentioned in a recent post, the pass level for those trying to become ADIs is below 10% – more than 90 out of every 100 will never make it. Of those that do, I would suggest anything up to 50% of them won’t carry on doing it for all kinds of reasons. It could be even more than that – I’m just hazarding a guess. But it means that out of all the people who try to become ADIs, at least 95% end up disappointed one way or another. Human nature being what it is, they will want to blame someone for it – and you can be sure it won’t be themselves they blame.
This is where Red Driving School comes in (though it must be pointed out that all the large schools have people who were dissatisfied with the training they received, and I suspect all independent trainers must have them, too). You have a huge number of people who never stood a chance – they were just not cut out for it, they didn’t understand it, or maybe they were just one of the vast majority who simply were never going to pass the winning post and succeed at the exams (and “John Davids” could easily be one of them). But they blame Red for it.
I would suggest that the decent old chap in the TV show was one of those who just didn’t understand, and this resulted in him believing he’d been told things which are actually written in black and white, and are not the same as he thought. Red’s website says:
… From when you pass the first of the qualifying tests, you have up to two years to pass the final qualifying test… you can wait to start work until you pass the final qualifying test, allowing 6 to 9 months, depending on test date availability and course waiting times.
It doesn’t say you will qualify in 16 weeks. To my eyes it says you need to allow 6 to 9 months after passing Part 1 depending on test date availability, and that you have up to two years. The only thing it doesn’t say is that you could fail – but why should it? Anyone with an ounce of sense will realise that failure is a possibility, and if they’ve researched properly they will know just how uncertain success is.
The point I’m making is that the chap from the TV show appears mistaken in at least some of his beliefs about what Red was offering, so this raises question about the other accusations. His views are certainly not held by everyone, as “John Davids” posting clearly shows.
I’m not saying Red Driving School is totally in the clear – but if people are going to evaluate the situation it is important not to select only the things that prove the point you want to make. Red is simply running a business which has a very definite large customer base.
EDIT 26/02/2010 #1: I’m still getting a lot of hits from Facebook, and when I popped back to that group I mentioned – which is in opposition to Red Driving School – I noticed that the owner has apparently been threatened with legal action unless she closes the site down. It is worth looking it up on Facebook (it’s called The Anti Red Driving School ) just to see what sort of things they discuss.
One post in particular caught my attention this time. You will bear in mind what I wrote in the Red Is Saved story, and what the administrator said about the Red business. You will also bear in mind what the new owner, Kelso Place, said about the business it was buying. Some comedian on the Facebook site using the name “Paul McArdle” knows better, though. I’m not going to reproduce it here, but libel of that magnitude isn’t going to be ignored by the new owners, you can be sure.
EDIT 26/02/2010 #2: Remember how I also said that driving instructors tend to be of a certain mentality, and love a conspiracy theory? Well, when I went back to that other forum where I picked up “John Davids” post and had a more detailed read of what was going on, I noticed all manner of theories about who was who on the Facebook site (even on Facebook, “John Davids” is being accused of all kinds of things concerning his identity). One member of the Facebook group is apparently a Red “plant” – when it’s obvious she is a Red employee, so why make such a big deal out of it?
But the best bit is that I am apparently not an ADI because of my “obvious IT expertise”, and the fact that the title of this blog (Diary Of An ADI) is similar to “ADIdiary” (which was something LVG was working on, as listed in its assets by MCR). It apparently “stinks”. Incidentally, it also explains why I am suddenly getting a lot of hits from people searching for “diary of an adi”.
In actual fact, MCR said:
The Company is developing a new software technology called sPyDA, a diary management and bookings system for use within driving schools.
It just goes to show the lengths some people will go to (and the things they will imagine up) to create a conspiracy theory. However, if it WAS a conspiracy I was part of, it would be a bloody good one – especially when you consider this blog was started in August 2008!
EDIT 27/02/2010: And as if to prove my point about the mentality of driving instructors, here is a thread from a forum frequented by such people:
A Driving Instructors' Forum
I think the second poster just had to get involved (he left it a whole week before replying), but seeing as he didn’t have anything useful to say he decided to show that he also wasn’t very good at humour either. But unfortunately, this is typical.