{"id":19134,"date":"2016-03-01T01:33:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T01:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=19134"},"modified":"2023-07-25T23:42:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T22:42:35","slug":"5day-intensive-driving-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=19134","title":{"rendered":"5Day Intensive Driving Course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Note the age of this article. Prices were correct at the time (5Day are still going, but as of 2022 the fees are almost double what they were in 2016).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw someone refer to this on a forum and looked the company up. I must stress that the following comments are my own opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What 5Day is offering is an intensive driving course which lasts for \u2013 no surprise – 5 days. The words that will leap out and burn themselves into the brains of the people likely to apply are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026cost effective theory and practical tuition that will allow an individual to learn to drive within 5 days\u2026 If you don\u2019t manage to pass your theory or practical tests you will receive free, unlimited retraining to help you improve.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure that 5Day are aware of this, and that the various conditions they apply will be overlooked by many applicants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, there is the cost of the course – \u00a3964 (they use the adverb \u201conly\u201d) . The theory and practical tests – just one attempt at each<\/strong> – are included in that, which means that the training itself is valued at \u00a3879. The training is done between 9am and 5pm, and this includes theory test training. It is necessary to make a few assumptions here, but if there is one hour of theory training and one hour for lunch, and if the rest of the time is in-car (which is perhaps a little generous), that means the pupil will be doing 5 hours of training each day \u2013 a total of 20 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we also assume that theory test tuition is valued at the same rate as driving tuition (also generous), and lunch hours have no monetary value, driving lessons are being charged at a rate of over \u00a335 per hour! I doubt that the pupil will actually be driving for 5 hours in a stretch \u2013 there will have to be breaks \u2013 so the actual lesson rate is probably even more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we come to the conditions and small print. First of all, 5Day says that theory tests are pre-arranged to take place during the course. I guess they can risk that claim, because booking a theory test only has a short waiting time (though if someone booked a short-notice course, I wonder how they\u2019d handle that). They then go on to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026once [the theory test is] passed, 5DAY\u2122 will assist you in applying for your priority practical driving test. 5DAY\u2122 guarantee to secure the test 75% sooner than the DVSA waiting list.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now, in many places in the country the waiting time for tests is very long, and the subject of much controversy. DVSA is trying to address the problem<\/a>. Here in Nottingham, for example, anyone booking a test today (29 February) will get a date in early June at Beeston, and mid-June at Colwick. That\u2019s more than 14 weeks away. As I look at all test centres in my area \u2013 that\u2019s Beeston, Colwick, Clifton, and Watnall \u2013 there is one cancellation\/available slot for Watnall this Saturday and nothing else for any of the others until June. I\u2019ve been actively looking for cancellations for pupils for the last few months and they simply don\u2019t come up very often. Even so, the \u201c75% sooner\u201d claimed by 5Day would make the typical wait for a test approximately four weeks, and with no guarantees of even that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s hardly the \u201cLearn to drive in just 5DAYs\u201d they claim on their website home page. It\u2019s more like \u201ccomplete the course in 5 days, then take the test in anywhere between a couple of days later if you\u2019re lucky and can attend it at such short notice, and 14 weeks if you\u2019re not\u201d. People who sign up for this will be drawn in by the \u201c5 days\u201d hook and end up disappointed \u2013 it\u2019s how bad reputations start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you book a course which is more than four weeks in the future then there is a non-refundable \u00a3200 deposit required \u2013 though the balance is required no less than four weeks before the course commences. You\u2019d need to be a bit careful there, since if you booked today for a session starting on 4 April you\u2019d have to pay \u00a3200 immediately \u2013 and another \u00a3764 before next Monday! If you didn\u2019t, you\u2019d lose \u00a3200 and not get on the course (that\u2019s what their conditions are saying).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5Day has centres in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Peterborough, Bristol, Norwich, and three around London. Many people will need to pay for at least four \u2013 probably five \u2013 nights of accommodation. You can slap another \u00a3150-\u00a3250 on the price for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you fail either of the tests, you will have to pay for further tests. The additional \u201cunlimited\u201d training is free but since it is outside of the \u201c5 day\u201d window you\u2019ll have to consider how you would complete such training. You may need further hotel stays, or possibly travel costs, if the re-training isn\u2019t residential. They don\u2019t say what form this re-training takes, and I doubt that it is \u201cintensive\u201d. And you will have to pay for the \u201chire\u201d of a car for the test \u2013 they don\u2019t mention anywhere how much that would be, but assume at least \u00a350, which would mean each re-test day would cost you at least \u00a3112.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The detailed conditions state that you might not go to test in the car you were training in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we come to the all-important disclaimer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 5DAY course is designed to give an average pupil an overall grounding on all the topics of the DSA learning to drive syllabus and to help a pupil achieve if possible DSA test standard by the end of the 5 Days. There is no guarantee implied written or otherwise that a pupil will get to the required standard to be able to pass a driving test as achieving this standard is entirely down to the pupils ability.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This seems to go completely against the gist of their homepage, where it says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn to drive in just 5DAYs\u2026 With our 5DAY intensive driving course\u2026 There really is no quicker, easier or safer way to get your full driving licence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s digress to discuss the implications of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even an above-average pupil would find it difficult to concentrate for more than 2 hours of driving at a time. Even with an hour break, a further 2 hours of driving would be less productive than the first two. Doing this for five days on the trot would be less productive still. I will admit that there is a very small number of people at any one time who might be able to handle it, but the vast majority couldn\u2019t. It is a simple fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going further, the official average number of hours taken to learn to drive by someone who hasn\u2019t driven before is around 40-50 hours with an instructor, plus 20 hours or more of private practice. The quickest I\u2019ve ever had anyone go from zero to test pass is 14\u00bd hours (1st time pass). I\u2019ve had another do it in 17\u00bd hours (1st time pass), several in under 25 hours (1st time passes, some with no private practice), the majority in 25-40 hours (one to several attempts), and a fair number in 40-60 hours (ditto). The most hours any of my pupils has taken is 160 (3rd time pass). And one did over 100 hours with me (no test taken) until I finally persuaded her to switch to automatic, whereupon she did around another 100 hours (7th time pass \u2013 and has since given up driving because she had too many accidents). Obviously, I have had many who could already drive and just needed a bit of a wash and brush up \u2013 sometimes only having a single lesson \u2013 but I haven\u2019t included these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, only two have done it in under 20 hours. I reckon that\u2019s considerably less than 5% of those I\u2019ve taught from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about intensive courses? Well, I don\u2019t offer them anymore, and here\u2019s why. A long time ago someone contacted me for an intensive course \u2013 20 hours over four days, with his test the next day. He\u2019d never driven before, and after the first session it was apparent he was not a quick learner. We\u2019d arranged the lessons so that he did 2 hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and two more in the evening, with a 2 hour break between each session. Each day went from the good (in the morning), through the bad, and finished with the ugly (in the evening)! Each of the three lesson days also followed a similar pattern. And he failed his test. A couple of months later he contacted me again, and we did the same \u2013 20 hours over four days. It all followed the same pattern, and he again failed his test. I felt terrible, he felt terrible \u2013 and that was the end of intensives for me. They simply cannot be relied on to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think back to him I can\u2019t help but think of the very real dangers of putting such people on the roads if they should manage to get lucky and scrape a pass. It\u2019s hardly \u201csafe driving for life\u201d, is it? I also wonder about the moral implications \u2013 over the last few years I\u2019ve had several people pass, some of them first time, who I worry about as a result of what they were capable of on lessons. You get to know them and you know that a test pass doesn\u2019t always tell the full story (one dyspraxic pupil was capable of the strangest actions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going back to what 5Day is offering, only a small percentage of the learner population stands a decent chance of passing in 20 hours \u2013 and it would still cost them considerably more \u00a31,000 overall to do it. The same pupils could take normal lessons and pass by spending considerably less than half that amount, and when you consider that 5Day cannot guarantee a quicker pass due to test waiting times you have to wonder what the pupil is actually paying for. For the more average pupil, they might end up taking any number of tests at \u00a362 a pop, with vehicle hire of at least \u00a350 per test. They could end up spending closer to \u00a31,500 \u2013 around double what it would cost them to do it normally. For below average pupils\u2026 well, how long is a piece of string? 5Day\u2019s offer isn\u2019t quite the \u201cexceptional quality, cost effective theory and practical tuition\u201d it first appears to be, is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I emphasise again that these are my opinions and my own experiences. Comments about 5Day\u2019s course are based on their own freely available information and conditions, and I only comment on the nature of intensive courses based on their relation to normal training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n