Aibu to be annoyed at dd driving instructor?!

[werniebooster]

Dd has had approx 20 hours with instructor.

He has said that she is driving well, all that she needs to do apparently is make changing gears etc second nature - she has told me she is doing this

Lessons consist of driving around our residential area, lots of turns, traffic lights and onto some main roads. But no roundabout practice and no test routes etc.

She needs to learn in the next three months before she moves area. Originally he said it was fine but now he's fudging it and saying how it's just not enough time (12 hours) to learn manoeuvres/do test routes - however he hasn't even started her on these even though she has no difficulties with work covered so far and would like to be stretched!

Aib to be pretty fuming?

20 hours without even starting maneuvers/ roundabouts seems a bit off to me tbh. Is she only having an hour a week? Can you take her out to practice in your car?

Bear in mind she will probably need to book a test date a few weeks in advance to ensure she can use his car for the test, so although she has 3 months till she moves she probably needs to book the test soon.

YANBU to be annoyed. I think you have two options.

1. Find a new instructor, set it out very clearly exactly what you want - eg in 3 months time I need to have at least taken a test and tried.
2. If possible, take her out with you in the car and show her roundabouts and some of the test routes. Twice a week would be good. She should progress much quicker then.

May be worth just booking a test for 3 months time and telling the instructor that's how it is. There will be pressure but it'd give some impetus to the whole thing.

There's no need to be fuming unless she's specifically told him that she wants to learn manoeuvres/do test routes, and he's refusing without good reason.

If that's the case, she needs to take her money elsewhere and get another instructor to asses her.

Change instructor.

Have you seen her drive? How often is she having lessons? Maybe an intensive course over a short space of time would be good, or getting her a couple of lessons with someone else to see what their view is. Most important thing is that she is safe and competent when she sits her test. 3 months is plenty of time to learn. Good luck. Hope she gets her full licence soon.

Vim she started in mid September and has had on average 1.5 hours a week, sometimes more. She swapped instructor a couple of times as first two were really not great (always late; not giving her full lesson time; on phone; carrying dogs in back of car!!!) so she had newest instructor for about 6 hours.

She really liked him at first but I think is getting a bit frustrated at his desire to not push her/give any lesson objectives. She is just doing the same routes over and over again and can't understand what she has to do to progress! She has spoken to him about it (she is polite and hates confrontation so asked him casually how he thought she was doing etc etc) but it sounds more and more like he's in it for the money...

Have you seen her drive, maybe she is not as good a driver as she thinks.

I have seen her drive, she seems fine.

I think her issue is that there are no major problems (or it seems any problems) and she's just doing exactly the same thing every lesson.

I have even spoken to the instructor myself and he says it's all going fine!

I think she would prefer having an objective each lesson or a goal. Surely that is fair?!

Can you afford to send her on one of the week long intensive courses with a test at the end of it?
If my DD doesn't pass this time (4th attempt) then that's what I will be doing.
It is expensive but when you look at hourly rate it's not bad at all.
My DD is OK driving, I take her out a bit but there are times she is a bit nervy.

Does she have a car yet? Practice makes perfect as they say.

There seems to be alot of this. My.first instructor I did 14 hours with and we kept doing same thing in same area in general, went on bypass once I think and country roads once.

Moved to my new instructor and have never done dose thing more than one lesson and he seems to really push me where as other one I felt was trying to get his moneys worth out me by taking his time. So glad I change and have since heard several people saying same thing about instructor one.

I'd change, look online for recommendations or post on local selling pages asking for names.

I think this "In it for the money" thing is a bit of a myth. Decent driving instructors near us often have a bit of a waiting list. My eldest two and lots of their mates have all used the same guy. They had lots of lessons but they all passed first time and, my two at least, are excellent drivers.

Friends' kids who have tried to rush the process with other instructors, swapping instructors etc, have invariably failed their test, often several times.

If her current instructor has only had her for 6 hours and she's had very iffy instructors before that it doesn't sound unreasonable to be tbh.

YABU

Did you get recommendations for any of these instructors. Using one that has taught someone you know so you can ask how the lessons went, how long to do each maneuver took to master etc.

Comparing Dds current instructor he doesn't sound great tbh. She's done most maneuvers, was tackling roundabouts on third lesson and was on the dual carriage way on lesson six. She's on lesson eight now and knows she needs to perfect all these things but has s good base to go foreword.

It doesn't seem very structured. DS is currently learning and has had 24 hours instruction up to last weekend when instructor said he is test ready. He has a little booklet with all the things to be covered on a chart and each week instructor marks these off with a number 1-5 showing whether these are mastered/done independently (5) or still under progress. First four hours were all done locally to master basic controls but since then he's been off in the city centre practising test routes, the set piece skills like reverse parking etc
Long wait for a test here so instructor suggest no lessons but to continue driving practice at home ( which we are able to do most days as DS and DH have same commute) and then go back to lessons the three weeks pre test.

So in short find a more structured instruction- the AA instructors are good for this- we've used Red driving school- think they are nationwide too.

I think your expectations are too high.

She has had three instructors in roughly 8 weeks. She has only done 6 hours with the current instructor. I would give it a few more weeks and see how it goes. Or do an intense course instead.

has she done her theory test yet?....when i learnt to drive, i put in for my test not expecting to pass to see what they said i needed to practice on....just an idea

It sounds like you are putting a lot of pressure on lessons because you need her to have passed within a total of 5 months which isn't that long really. She is on her third instructor in about 8 weeks too. The current one has only had 6 hours which I'd 3-4 lessons I don't think there sounds like anything wrong with that.
I had 2 instructors and the second one did go back to basics at first even though I'd been with the one before long enough to book my test because there were gaps in my knowledge and capabilities. I think you need to actually give one of the instructors a chance rather than chop and change when yoy don't think they are teaching her fast enough. She will learn at the speed she learns self imposed time limit or not. It's not in an instructors interests to string out lessons really as so much of their business is word of mouth. They want to turn out competent drivers with a high pass rate.

But she's not had 20hrs with the same one, so the current one will be going through his process like she hadn't had any.
I learnt quickly but that was with my mum taking me out almost every night and my time with an instructor was to be practicing test routes, maneuvers, an making sure I hadn't picked up any bad habits. I think you need to out line what you'd like the instructor to focus on and take her out as much as possible yourself.
Defiantly get her theory done, if she's not already, it'll push everything along. And if she has a deadline book a test as soon as she has the theory (there's always a wait where I am)
Having it booked gives the instructor and your DD a focus - although I honest think that I only passed quickly because of the effort my mum put in taking me out, meant that normal road driving was really second nature!

My ds started learning in September. He has had fairly regular lessons, not strictly every week, but once had 2 in one week, and a couple of times has had 90 minute lessons, so it works out roughly at an hour a week. Unfortunately no practice outside lessons as our cars aren't suitable for learner drivers. Decent teacher as far as I know, ie she has taught/is teaching several of his friends and no-one is complaining yet. I think it is way too early to be thinking about taking the test. I appreciate your time restraint, but personally, I am only thinking ds will take his test before the summer.

I would recommend speaking to the instructor yourself and telling him your time restraint and see if he can take your dd for more than one lesson a week. But bear in mind he has hardly been teaching your dd for any time. It may have taken a week or two for him to correct the effects of the bad teaching she had before.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your replies.

She has passed her theory, yes.

It's not so much the pace of lessons I think, it's the fact that her current instructor just has her on the same residential route in our estate doing loops. Has gone for five lessons now, about an hour and a half each.

She would much prefer objectives and having a goal in sight but he keeps telling her not to bother and how it would just discourage her.

She is looking for another instructor now who will push her a bit, it's not so much the number of lessons we're concerned about (obviously we just want her to be a safe driver and feel ready), more the content - she just feels like she's going nowhere.

Make changing gear, etc, second nature is possibly polite-speak for something like needs to change gears without actually looking at the gear stick and taking both feet of the pedals.

If I had been told that I would have assumed that I was still making a bit of a meal about doing anything other than steer the car!

But then I know a couple of instructors and one of them (25 years experience) is considering quitting as some of his recent pupils have scared him with their uber-confidence and lack of ability to understand that it is them not the car that does those odd things, like veer, judder, roll...

I would just book at test for the New Year and tell the instructor. Then he'll have to start teaching her everything.

If she's had him for 6 hours and it's 1.5 hour a lesson, that's only 4 lessons she's had with him, so not a completely ridiculous amount of times to repeat lessons/routes with a new pupil.

Does she get any practice outside of lessons?

OurBlanche totally get where you're coming from but I think he means more that she should be in charge of doing it rather than being promoted - I have been out with her a couple of times and she is able to

I'm not saying she a fantastic driver, she's ok, obviously has work to do but is getting demotivated by lack of progression and basically the fact she's paying £35 for 90 mins of driving circuits around a few houses...

Promoted = prompted!!

Ah! It just reminded me of many moons ago when my cousin was thrown out of an instructor's car and made to walk home, giving her time to reconsider her actions.

She had driven onto a roundabout - the Addenbrooke's hospital roundabout, with the newly changed priorities and odd lanes - and simply let go of everything and started to scrabble round on the floor.

The instructor managed to get them off the roundabout and safely stopped. Her excuse was that she had been twirling a ring on her finger and it had fallen off, so she was looking for it - and yes, she was in the driving seat, 20 or 30 hours into her lessons. He was a brave man, he took her back out the following week. But she never did pass her test.

I am assuming your DD is nowhere near that clueless