Great Ways To Cut The Cost Of Learning To Drive Hunt

hollie.weimeraner

I'm sorry Martin but this is not one of your best "money saving posts". The reason? BSM are charging approx £23 per hour for a lesson. Local lessons (Sheffield) work out at anything between £16 and £20 per hour. My wife charges between £17 and £19. The average number of lessons required by a pupil to get to test standard is around 40 - 50 therefore the £60 worth of free lessons are used up somewhere between lesson 10 and lesson 20 in Sheffield. From that point on you are paying more, so this will only be a money saving exercise for those who pass their test within 10 - 20 lessons. Bear in mind also that BSM employ a high proportion of trainee instructors that are not fully qualified and make up your own mind whether this provides value for money.

It does sound good initially but delve a little deeper and this reccomendation may cost driving students quite a bit more than with a local instructor. As has already been stated in this post - Reccomendations are the best way to get hold of a good driving instructor.

the_jogger

Please note that price is not the most important consideration. Ask the instructor what their pass rate is. A friend in Peterborough is an instructor with around 78% pass rate, whereas the average is under 50%. It is a lot cheaper if you pass first time and don't need further lessons.

beatleman

I'm a B.S.M. instructor and the Tesco deal is as follows.Six 1 hour lessons or three 2 hour lessons after you've done the 2 hours in the simulator.A pack of 4 books,called Pass your theory test,Theory test question book,How to pass your driving test and Private practice sessions which is a very good book for people accompanying learners to read before they go out on the road with them,plus a Theory test CD rom.Depending on the lesson price around £21 hour in Wales it can be worth around £240 I suppose.Its not true about there being no negotiation on lesson prices,as I charge most of my pupils £19 which is student rate,as when work is quiet its better to have £19 than nothing.Also another tip is if you pay for 10 hours in advance when you pass you get free R.A.C. membership for a year which is worth around £40.Also as we are now part of Norwich Union one of my pupils told me that when he did Pass Plus they offered him a 40% discount.Hope this helps you all.

swillyburger

aliwatts wrote:

Hi,

Yes me too, I can drive but my husband can't, I can't believe how the prices have risen so I am told. Approx about £20 per lesson. Its very hard to find a good instructor I am also told. My husband has failed twice on different things and now his Theory has ran out, does he have to pay for that again aswell?

Any clues as to how much a crash course would be?

Thanks

Ali

You might find the price of lessons are more than that, depends on the area you live in .

Your husband will have to pass the theory & Hazard perception test & yes he will have to pay again :mad: .

The cost of a Intensive course (please dont use the words crash course :rotfl: he he Driving instructors dont do crash courses We wouldnt be any good if we did)
they differ from Instructor to Instructor, but find out if it is one to one in the car or if your sharing & how many hrs in the car this will be.

I no some Instructors in my area charge around £400 to £500 for 20 hrs but like i have said priviously it depends on the area that you live.

Pass Pluss is a very good thing to go for but again the price will differ in diferent areas in oxfordshire its anything from £100 to £250.

I hope that helps :beer:

pavlovs_dog

gazza1988 wrote:

ive done a search and i cannot find the link you are talking about pavlovs_dog. i need to send off for my provisional but i dont know anyone who can sign.

see thread HERE about certified copies of original documents, which follow the same prinicples as countersigned applications

as you can see from the list below, the list of who qualifies to countersign is extensive (although some of them wil try to charge. the trick is to find someone you know who falls into one ofthe below categories, even if it is in an obscure way ).

Acceptable countersignatures:

Accountant
Articled clerk of a limited company
Assurance agent of recognised company
Bank/building society official
Barrister
Broker
Chairman/director of limited company
Chemist
Chiropodist
Christian Science practitioner
Commissioner of oaths
Councillor: local or county
Civil servant (permanent)
Dentist
Engineer (with professional qualifications)
Fire service official
Funeral director
Insurance agent (full time) of a recognised company
Journalist
Justice of the Peace
Legal secretary (members and fellows of the Institute of legal secretaries)
Local government officer
Manager/Personnel officer (of limited company)
Member of Parliament
Merchant Navy officer
Minister of a recognised religion
Nurse (SRN and SEN)
Officer of the armed services (active or retired)
Optician
Person with honours (e.g. OBE MBE etc.)
Photographer (professional)
Police officer
Post Office official
President/Secretary of a recognised organisation
Salvation Army officer
Social worker
Solicitor
Surveyor
Teacher, lecturer
Trade union officer
Travel agency (qualified)
Valuers and auctioneers (fellow and associate members of the incorporated society)
Warrant officers and Chief Petty Officers

gazza1988

thank you.

my dad's boss could do it. ive helped him out on a couple of jobs. in sure he'd sign a bit of paper for me.

i never thought of him.
thanks pavolovs_dog

dirtyred619

I've been looking recently into becoming an ADI and you are required to pass 3 tests to get your full ADI badge. However, if you get to and pass the second test, you have the option of taking up a trainee badge that lasts for 6 months. You can charge for lessons on this badge upto full price of upto the average of £20 ish, but alot of learner ADI's charge alot less than that (maybe even free if your lucky or pay to cover the petrol etc) as it is all experience for their part 3 which is the hardest part of the lot.

Basically, if your not too fussed about being taught of learner ADI (qualified to drive but not officially fully qualified to teach, if you get me!) then its worth looking into, its all extra experience hopefully at a fraction of the cost of 'normal' lessons and you will usually be taught in a dual controlled car etc.

Cheers

Dread

Shengen/Mark,

It appears you have done the ADI qualification course which, readers, involves no requirement for any type of advanced driving consequently most driving instructors are not much better drivers than you would be if you passed with 5 minors or less as that is the requirement for part 2 of the ADI qualification.

You are delusional if you imagine there is only "one clear and explicit meaning" to a road sign, there are implications and further information to be gleaned from them which, if your not passing that information on to your pupils, demonstrates you are failing in your job. Perhaps reading “another book cluttering up the shelves of W H Smith on driving written by an expert” that “we need like a hole in the head” would do you some good as if you imagine I would write something that remotely resembles some of the literature you are referring to you are not merely delusional but bordering on the insane. Had someone said to Martin “Oh not anther finance book” when he wrote his money diet book I expect he would have slapped them about the ears (verbally) therefore consider yourself slapped!

Finally, if you imagine it doesn’t make economic or business sense to change vehicles every 6 months you are also demonstrating a simplistic lack of insight, my 5 month old Ford Focus developed a misfire last Wednesday at 2pm, my local Ford garage couldn’t look at it until Friday so the AA had a new one on my doorstep at 6.45 on Thursday morning. I inconvenienced two pupils but managed to fit them in over the next couple of days. BSM are similar, how many independents can promise service like that.

Like I said at the beginning of my first post, you get what you pay for, including learning in a 1.6, air conditioned, new smelling car in which the instructor is rarely, if ever, called during a lesson by the Customer Support Centre, and yes BSM offer similar services with different benefits, and that’s why independents offer cheaper rates which is fair enough, its mostly down to personal choice.

Martins attempt to reduce the cost of lessons is not an opportunity to ‘have a dig’ nor a bun fight over individual companies, ADI’s or corporate Vs independent route so if you want to continue this dialogue PM me and we can free up the forum.

David

pavlovs_dog

dread, posting personal info such as email addresses is highly discouraged by the site for privacy and security reasons. please remove and PM it to him instead :beer:

twink

i learned to drive with bsm and was more than happy with them before that i was with an independant school of driving but felt they were dragging things out i would agree two hour lessons are best esp if you dont get practise in between lessons