An American article, but very relevant to the UK – and anywhere else where driving lessons are conducted.
The article says that better drivers are frequently the product of better-quality driving schools. It doesn’t really expand upon this, being mainly an advisory in the popular mode (the UK media is no better), but the tag line is definitely valid.
I guess the instructor involved in what I saw this afternoon should take note. I’d picked up a pupil for a lesson, and as we were waiting at the end of his street to emerge I saw another learner car go by – and I recognised the driver. A few weeks ago he’d put his lessons on hold to concentrate on his studies (this sometimes happens a lot at this time of year). I’d obviously been at pains to find out if it was anything I’d done at that time, and he assured me it wasn’t.
When I saw this today, I texted him a little later and asked if it was him I’d seen. He said it was, and that this instructor was giving him a few lessons over the summer holidays. I again asked if it was anything I’d done (good instructors are paranoid about things like this), and he telephoned me to assure me it was absolutely nothing to do with me, but his mum was paying and this instructor had told her that her son shouldn’t stop driving otherwise he’d forget everything and never get started again.
That is an absolute load of crap.
The instructor in question must be really desperate for work to have to resort to this type of unprofessional behaviour (Heaven knows what other things were said). It’s a shame such antics don’t get you kicked off the register, because they should.
One thing is certain: you get what you pay for, and someone so desperate for work that they drop prices and provide inaccurate information in order to steal it from other people really are worth even less than that!
The funny part is, though, that my diary is full up. So I guess the last laugh is mine. Of course, my ex-pupil will suffer because he wasn’t far away from test standard, and this cowboy is going to milk him for the summer.