Driving Instructor - My experience after a year

[vikingaero]

We have a local instructor that near us that is highly rated by students. Why? Because she iz dahn wiv da yoofs! She understands them. They don't wake up for 4pm driving lessons so she send texts in advance. She avoids booking them for 9am lessons on a Sunday morning because chances are they are bankered from the night before. She doesn't charge if they cancel last minute because one short term loss is a long term gain.

I agree that it isn't a job I could do. Mrs V. is a primary school teacher and that is another job I couldn't do. I'd be banged up for slapping a child and/or parent.

[Valgar]

Bristol spark said:

Have you tried increasing the hourly rate?

You may get less work, but will work less and hopefully still earn the same.

Franchise sets the hourly rate, lots of local competition too, you have to be careful you don't price yourself out.

ambuletz said:

Is that £900-1k per month? seems very little if you're spending 70+hrs a week out tthere.

A week

GrandAndrew said:

Even when working for a franchise or similar I take it you still have to do it on a self employed basis?

Yeah Self employed, with the pros and cons but not quite getting full freedom. If I carry on I'll try going independent, save nearly £100 a week.

Rakoosh said:

I've also wondered - what if you got that student that just couldn't do it on the test itself !

It happens, you get pupils that are totally brilliant in lessons then nerves destroy them on the day, one went as far as hypnotherapy (which worked), you just keep trying and trying new things to make them more relaxed.

Nearlyretired said:

The people who are going to change the driving test have never been instructors.

Totally true, I asked an examiner just last week, they know about these changes from news but don't actually know the specifics of whats coming, just as clueless as we are, all we have is vague ideas.

catman said:

I was an Instructor for 8 years. Teaching people to drive was the easy part. Dealing with the morons on the road who were supposedly qualified was the hard part!

Tim

Totally agree, after doing this job I strongly feel the licence should only last so long before some sort of 'refresher test'

liner33 said:

My son is learning to drive at the moment , we are paying £38ph, our instructor is very unreliable and has cancelled or been late for about 40% of his lessons

That has to be London right??? If you aren't happy with your instructor then change, you're paying for a service and not receiving it, you wouldn't go back to a crap restaurant would you?

Loyly said:

He used to tell me about the good things and bad things being a driving instructor entailed. He used to turn away business from certain communities because it was such hard work. He'd given up on instructing Asian women who wanted to be accompanied. Often he'd have a pupil who couldn't speak much English and so didn't understand him very well, accompanied by a friend sitting in the back to translate and an uncle or brother as a chaperone. This seemed to descend into the chaperone shouting at him, the translator shouting at him and the driver crumbling under the pressure. This became an increasing burden on his business as his marketing had reached the inner districts of the city, when he actually worked from twenty miles away in a neighbouring rural county!

Which is to say nothing of the boy racers who wanted to rag the car about. Pupils who received bans during their lessons but never told the instructor. Learners turning up drunk, high or too tired to drive. Learners who wanted to use their driving lesson as cheap and convenient transport to a far off destination (like starting a two hour lesson in Ashington and just wanting to go south on the A1 to Middlesborough or further!).

I deal with a large number of Asians and I've had a few translators in the back but never ever had an issue, dead handy for explaining things, but during the drive just directions, no explanations. I've gotten to the point now where I know how to say left, right, straight, pull over, slow, and gas in Mandarin, can't spell them but I can understand them.

[liner33]

Valgar said:

liner33 said:

My son is learning to drive at the moment , we are paying £38ph, our instructor is very unreliable and has cancelled or been late for about 40% of his lessons

That has to be London right??? If you aren't happy with your instructor then change, you're paying for a service and not receiving it, you wouldn't go back to a crap restaurant would you?

No but Thames Valley, in the sticks, not a lot of option though and he knows it

[Yipper]

Low pay, long hours, and fighting fire all day long... Sounds no different to most modern jobs.

[Blakewater]

The guy I learned to drive with ran his own business and was always very busy, he had a long waiting list of students wanting to learn with him and came recommended to me by word of mouth from someone at school.

A few years later someone I worked with wasn't getting along very well with her instructor. I'd seen the guy I learned with around a lot up until then but hadn't seen him for a while. I was going to recommend him to my colleague but decided to look him up on the Internet to confirm he was still teaching people to drive. I found out he'd died, he'd been found dead at home by his family and the general belief was that he'd committed suicide because of money problems.

He hadn't said anything much about having difficulty with money but did talk about having negative equity with his car finance and make the odd comment about having to be careful with his money. He seemed to work a lot but not be all that well off from it.

[renmure]

An ex-GF about 10 years ago trained to be a driving instructor and I do remember her saying that the failure rate to become an instructor was high.

She didn't go into a franchise but went straight to being independent. She was (very) attractive and for her 1st car she bought/leased a red BMW Mini Cooper with the full white chequered roof and stripes and advertised along the lines of "Learn to drive in a Mini Cooper" when most of the opposition had Corsas or the like. Whether either of these had any influence, she was really busy from day one with young blokes, 6th year schoolboys and also seemed to popular with other female learners.

[Downward]

Do these franchises charge loads of money for leasing the cars ?

I learned in mark 2 Ford Fiesta in 1995 so it must have been 7 or 8 years old. my wife an old shape micra which was around 6 years old.

I've seen a well known name instructor school driving around in Audi a3's. Surely this isn't cost effective ?

[Valgar]

Downward said:

Do these franchises charge loads of money for leasing the cars ?

I learned in mark 2 Ford Fiesta in 1995 so it must have been 7 or 8 years old. my wife an old shape micra which was around 6 years old.

I've seen a well known name instructor school driving around in Audi a3's. Surely this isn't cost effective ?

Depends on your deal, in my case I supply my own car, the national franchises will bulk buy Fiestas and that's covered in your franchise fee, so if they're Audis the franchise fee is probably extortionate and is just something else for them to make money from.

Seen some in Abarth 595s! I spend about £6-7000 a year on fuel, would hate to see their bill.

Yipper said:

Low pay, long hours, and fighting fire all day long... Sounds no different to most modern jobs.

To be fair it's better than the living wage and it's not the worst job in the world, but it's not amazing either and carries a ton of responsibility. Just thought I'd give my experiences as I'm sure many on PH would've considered it

Edited by Valgar on Sunday 16th April 16:43

Edited by Valgar on Sunday 16th April 16:45

[AndStilliRise]

Reminds me of this:

https://youtu.be/aNlBMQi3VYE

[Valgar]

AndStilliRise said:

Reminds me of this:

https://youtu.be/aNlBMQi3VYE

Hahaha bloody hell I remember that!

Also that emergency stop reminded me of a test I had recently, 60 mph zone with traffic lights, he spotted the lights late (they were Green) but he slammed the brakes on as hard as he possibly could and the car screeched to a halt, the examiner nearly went through the screen!