Diary Of An ADI

A reader has taken issue with my maths in my article “Should I Become A Driving Instructor?” (which is now updated for 2018, though the following article applies to the 2010 version). He says:

…I have to say your maths is totally to pot.The pass rate figures are for each exam taken.You fail to take account that most canditates wouldn’t (sic) just have only one attempt and then if they fail stop, they will have up to three attempts at each of the exams.

Let me clarify. Yes, the pass rates are for each exam taken. So if the pass rate is 52% for Part 1, it is 52% every time you attempt it. The only improved chance you stand as an individual on retakes is if you revise more, and while I agree that this will possibly change the overall success rate at Part 1 for an individual, the fact remains that the pass rate is 52%. That 52% pass rate includes people taking it time and time again.

Probably the most important thing, though, is that if you fail it because you don’t know the answers then you will probably fail it every time you take it unless you really do some work in between tries. That 52% is a measured pass rate and not a probability! It isn’t like tossing a coin. With the later exams involved in becoming an ADI, the lower pass rates make the situation worse for people who fail badly due to not being up to it.

To make things simpler, imagine you have to pass three exams, and that you can’t take the next one until the one before is passed. Imagine also that the pass rate for each exam is 50% – and that 50% includes every result (retakes as well as first tries). Imagine that 100 people set out to take these exams.

Since only 50% of those taking the first exam will pass first try, only 50 people are eligible to take the second. The other 50 can keep retaking the exam again and again – but if the exam requires absolute knowledge, and isn’t just down to potluck, then those people will not all pass.

Imagine now that the second exam can only be tried three times, and that it also requires absolute knowledge and isn’t just a formality. Let’s assume that after retakes, the original 50 who passed the first exam has increased to… 75 (and that is being very generous when we know that the 50% pass rate includes retakes and that to pass you must attain a high standard of knowledge or some skill). Only 37.5 (say 38) will pass the second exam – but let’s be generous and inflate this to 50 after two retakes. So, 50 people now go on to take the final exam, and only 25 pass – again, let’s be generous and inflate this to 35 after two retakes.

By making a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions and being generous we have achieved an overall pass rate of about 35% – or a failure rate of 65%.

In my post I simply stuck with factual data: the measured pass rates (including retakes). I did not make any assumptions about pass rates on 2nd and third attempts. If we apply that to our 50:50:50 exams, above, then out of 100 people 50 pass the first exam, 25 pass the second, and 12.5 pass the third. So, a pass rate of 12.5% (or failure rate of 87.5%).

A failure rate of 87.5% or 65%… what does it matter? It is a high failure rate! That is the point I was making.

And with 52:42:24 pass rates, whether you like it or not the failure rate can be as high as 95%. Even if you are being generous, it is still going to be well over 70% – but the kind of people trying to become instructors these days does not support too much generosity: the majority are not going to make it.

EDIT 5/1/2011: The latest pass rates for Parts 1, 2, and 3 are 45%, 50%, and 34% respectively. Those are 2010 figures obtained from the DSA (now DVSA, of course) .

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.

VERY old post.

I’ve mentioned the BSM and AA franchises in recent posts, but a new player on the field is What Car? They launched their driving school a couple of months ago. [link long since dead]

For £179 a week, they offer a franchise which includes the car and a full support package. At the moment, pupil introductions are also included in this price .

They also do a brand-only deal where you supply your own car, and this costs £67 a week (the car you provide has to be less than 3 years old and meet certain other criteria – obviously to protect the brand image).

The only possible minor issue I can see is their lesson rates. A single hour in this area is £23 – which is fine – but a block booking of 10 hours is discounted to an hourly rate of £21 (a block of 25 hours is discounted to £20 per hour). A lot of pupils will book the 10 hour block, I would imagine – so instructors will be earning around £21-22 per hour. If you annualise this it could add up to more than £2,500 a year less income than other national franchises (who charge greater hourly rate). That £2,500 equates to another £50 on the franchise.

EDIT 22/02/2010: A reader has provided me with some very useful information, and as a result I have edited this post to include that information. It is not my intention to be overtly critical of What Car? or any other franchise operation, so I will try and present the information in a neutral way.

I initially wrote that franchisees don’t pay for pupil introductions. This is not correct. Here is what potential franchisees were told in an email before Christmas:

Optional Pupil Introduction Service

As a What Car? 5 Star Instructor you will be able to benefit from our pupil introduction service.

For each new Learner introduced to a Franchisee, What Car? Driving School will charge 10% of what the Learner pays for that initial lesson booking, plus VAT – subject to a minimum fee of £19.50 per Learner plus VAT.

Our aim will be to secure the best value for you on this initial booking by asking Learners or their parents to book a course of lessons using our recommended retail price (RRP) guide. If we cannot secure a block booking we will of course take a booking and payment for a minimum of 2 hours.

As is common in the industry, we ask that you offer a set discount in exchange for the Learner’s commitment in buying the course of

lessons:

£1 discount per hour on a pre-paid course of 5 lessons

£2 discount per hour on a pre-paid course of 10 lessons

£3 discount per hour on a pre-paid course of 25 lessons Once the Learner is allocated it is the Instructors responsibility to retain the Learner and secure additional lessons beyond the initial booking. These repeat bookings will not attract the 10% pupil introduction fee unless the Learner continues to book through our central booking service.

So, franchisees will have to pay for any pupils What Car? passes on to them. My understanding of this email is that new pupils will cost at least £22.91, but if they were to book 25 hours then What Car? would take a 10% cut of the £500 payment plus VAT (i.e. £58.75 – or it might just be £50 if the lesson price is taken to include VAT for these purposes).

What Car? will take that 10% cut repeatedly if pupils book through the central booking system – so unless the ADI can take credit card payments in-car (99.99% of them can’t, because you don’t take enough credit card payments to make a merchant account of that type viable) block bookings will almost certainly go through the What Car? system.

Another email also indicates the following:

Each new Franchisee is required to purchase our Starter Pack comprising car decals, roof box and marketing support materials. This can be paid weekly in addition to the Brand Fee at a rate of £9.00 per week plus VAT or alternatively as a single annual discounted premium in advance of £350.00 plus VAT.

If we try and put some numbers to this, a new franchisee with no pupils will have to pay £179 a week for the car option. Over an initial period, during which he builds up his diary, he will need around 25 pupils – and for these he could pay anywhere between £570 and £1,250, depending on how many lessons they booked (realistically, let’s say he will pay £900 as the halfway figure). He may be required to “pay” this (i.e. lose income) over a period of just weeks or months if the advertising comes good.

Throughout the year a typical ADI could be taking an average of 1 or 2 new pupils a week. Over a year, this could amount to (halfway figure again) £3,500.

Plus, he has to pay £410 for the decals.

So in his first year, our ADI could end up paying out around £300 per week on the What Car? franchise (or even more if pupils wanted to pay by credit card through the What Car? booking system). He would only be paying £179 in the event that he were generating all his own pupils – and in that case, he is simply leasing the car.

I think people would obviously have to consider all their options very seriously – as they should be doing anyway – before committing themselves on the strength of the advertising for any franchise. The AA is clear on its pupil referral costs, and BSM’s main franchise cost (which includes pupils) is also quite clear. As long as people know what they are getting they can make informed decisions.

What Car? is obviously not to be dismissed as a player in the market, but it could be clearer on its charges to franchisees in the advertising.

EDIT 16/6/2011: I’m a bit late adding this, but the post has been getting a few hits lately so I thought I’d better complete the story.

What Car? Driving School has merged with New Driver. Reading through the hype, What Car? simply couldn’t compete on its own.

I found this article in the Financial Times today, which makes interesting reading.

I should point out that the author contacted me to ask if I would be able to offer any advice on an article she was writing about the industry (she didn’t specify what the subject was), and I replied that I would be more than happy to assist. Unfortunately, she never followed it up. From the timing of that initial contact, I don’t think the author was aware that Red Driving School (or rather, its holding group parent, LVG) was going to go into administration this week. However, I must say that the (few) data sources that have been used to produce the article appear incredibly weak and one-sided.

For example, the argument that many instructors have had to go part-time because the market is flooded is nonsense. It might be a valid opinion, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny as a fact. You can’t simply argue that because some of your best mates have had to go part-time because they can’t generate enough work, it is someone else’s fault! Being a driving instructor is a self-employed position, and many of the people quoted are simply harkening back to the good old days when there weren’t enough instructors to go around. They’ve been complaining for years.

The argument that the recession has caused learner drivers to cut back on lessons is also highly misleading and flawed. I’m know some learners have had to stop lessons because they can’t afford it, but many others have started precisely because having a driver’s licence is a distinct advantage to them gaining employment. It’s swings and roundabouts, and it always has been.

The argument that “some” people have left BSM because there is too little work is short-sighted in its scope. The important questions must be “how many?” and “for what reasons?” before citing this as evidence that the industry is in crisis (which is what older instructors have always claimed anyway). People have left BSM for all sorts of reasons (recently, because BSM changed from Corsas to FIAT 500s) – and they leave all other franchises for all sorts of reasons, too! All you have to do is scout around web forums and look for people trying to wriggle out of their agreements and you can see it isn’t just BSM, and it isn’t just because of lack of work. Plenty of people at BSM have loads of work – but they are the ones who are prepared to work the hours. There is much more to this than merely trying to tie leaving the franchise to crisis in the industry.

The article even quotes a BSM instructor who left before Christmas, using his opinion to suggest there are too many instructors or something. That instructor almost certainly left because of the FIAT 500 thing (and everything surrounding it), as did many others “just before Christmas” – but as an ADI he will have had a preconceived idea about the state of the industry (e.g. too many instructors, driving schools advertising on TV, and so on). The author of this article hasn’t allowed for any of that, probably because she wasn’t aware of it.

The article doesn’t state where this ex-BSM instructor has gone, but a lot of them have gone over to the AA, so they must think the grass is greener somewhere. Others go independent, and I suspect that the desire to go independent has a lot to do with trying to find ways to weasel out of their franchise agreements. After all, if there is no work at a big franchise (with its advertising budget and name), how the hell do they think they will fare on their own, especially when the World is about to collapse – if you listen to their daft excuses for quitting BSM in the first place? My own opinion is that someone who has been prepared to pay £350 a week for work which has allegedly been declining and inadequate for so long is hardly likely to be the wisest of people. No, the article misses out a lot of very important details.

Other comments from people interviewed also betray a very biased view on what is happening. Basically, it is a single view based on a single prejudice.

It is worth noting that between September and the start of December 2009 the number of registered ADIs rose from 45,370 to 45,740 – an increase of 370. So we had 370 new ADIs to suck up all that work appearing on the scene in a 3 month period. The number of people on “pink” (trainee) licences rose by 108 in the same period. It isn’t exactly the Armageddon being portrayed, is it? And the figures don’t include the number who will have stopped teaching due to things such as ill-health, retirement, death, or other personal reasons, and who are not in the teaching pool but remain on the register nonetheless! Furthermore, with the effects of the recession at their height, this increase in registered ADIs is quite likely to be a peak rather than a trough and so gives a reasonable pointer to how far away from meltdown we actually are.

There are fewer ADIs than you’d imagine who do this job as their sole source of income. Many are part-time to begin with and always have been, others have a second income in the household, still others just do it for pin money or as a statement of familial independence. Yet these people have opinions just as inflated as anyone else out there: just as big, just as biased, and – often – just as misguided. Can someone who is part-time or just trying to show independence at home really provide the same sort of input that someone who depends on this job to live can? Make up your own mind on that one.

The pass rate for people trying to become ADIs is appallingly low. Less than 10 out of every 100 make it, and of those who do many will not survive long (either because of poor business sense or simply because they don’t like/can’t handle the job). This probably explains why less than 400 new ADIs are appearing every three months – and many of those will just cease trading at some point.

Some areas of the country are really instructor-heavy, and you can’t deny that in these places there is an issue. But it is not like that everywhere. These top-heavy places also tend to be the ones where recession hits hardest – cities in the North East and North West, Yorkshire, parts of Scotland, Wales, etc. The chance to earn loads of money without any qualifications (if you heed the TV adverts) is bound to be attractive to many in such places, but this is where you have to try and separate emotion from business. The path to becoming an ADI has always been the same – and the lack of any need for real education as an entry criterion has also always been the same. The only thing that has changed is time: the passage of time. The world isn’t the same now as it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago, and you can’t use historical values to make business decisions in the present. Well, you can – but like I say, a lot of people fail at this even if they qualify.

I’m going to cover quite a lot of this in my series on Becoming An Instructor ( Part 1 is here). But as for the FT article, it’s a shame it didn’t look into things a little more deeply and so get a less biased set of data on which to report. As it is, it just provides grist for the mill for those who have a very one-sided (and outdated) view on this industry.