Instructor ripping off my niece?

mruncleman

So my niece has been learning to drive for over a year now and has her test coming up soon. She's asked if I can take her out and insured her on my car and taken her out.

Well, my observation is she's not ready and I have asked questions about her driving instructor. 

Well she has never been on a country road.
She has never been over this particular notorious roundabout local to us and she has never been over 50.

I'm confused. She says it's because he only takes her on routes that will be used in the test. There are no country lanes, no speeds above 50mph and this particular roundabout is not on her test route. So he's basically just teaching her to pass her test on the routes she will be driving on her test. But not really learn to drive and I'm thinking as soon as she passes, if she passes she's gonna have no clue how to really drive.

Surly this is not acceptable driving instructor behaviour? He's part of Bennetts driving school.

Has anyone heard or had experience with this?

caprikid1

Surely a test is to get to basic level of safety so you can start to learn to drive ? I chose a motorway lesson after which was really useful.

I don't think he's ripping her off, he probably has not taught her what to do in a rear end slide situation or a car mugging either.

angrycrow

The reality is a driving instructor will teach them how to pass their test. They learn to drive after they pass. I suspect this is why a lot of drivers have a bump in their first year of driving.

You could look at pass plus once she has passed her test. 

mruncleman

A basic level of driving capability yes. But if you live in a suburban area where they might not even have roundabouts and roundabouts are not in your test. Is it acceptable to not teach round abouts. 

I'm not saying she will be expected to go through every scenario because that's just not possible. The real learning Comes after your pass. But surly if you have never been on a country lane and the first time you drive them is after you have passed your test your not going to be able to know how to handle it. Same with driving at 70mph. Then you'll get a newly passed driver doing 20mph in on a 60mph road because they don't have the confidence to handle this situation. Surly thats more dangerous in the long run. 

I would love to see the accident rates after passes that could have been prevented if the driving instructor just taught the student to drive over the roads they're going to encounter all the time. Then they can work the rest out for themselves with confidence

caprikid1

"But surly if you have never been on a country lane and the first time you drive them is after you have passed your test your not going to be able to know how to handle it."

Personally I think driving through built up 30 limit roads is far more likely to build good hazzard awareness that cruising around on quiet country lanes with few side turnings etc. I don't really see much difference, especially if they drive to the speed of their ability.

mruncleman

And the speed of their ability isn't close to the speed limit of the road. Then you get frustrated drivers trying to over take stressing out the new passed driver and potentially causing accidents.

I agree with slow speed hazard perception, probably at its highest during traffic. 

If this is normal then maybe it's just my experience driving, my instructor who took me on fast roads in the first few hours which were not on my test btw and I have taught someone else to drive too who had experience with all types of roads. Passed her test with only 2 minors. That now I'm thinking comes down to the wide variety of experience she had.

Ebe_Scrooge

It's one of the oldest chestnuts in the book : "An instructor teaches you to pass the test; you only start to really learn to drive once you've passed your test".

When I was learning (many, many, many years ago!) my dad taught me, and he did take me out on all sorts of roads, dual carriageways, driving at night, driving in snow, round town, country roads, you name it.  When I passed I did have a pretty decent all-round knowledge.  But if you only ever get taught by an instructor, they'll pretty much teach you to pass the test and that's it.  Hence the popularity of the many supplementary courses like pass-plus, motorway driving, etc. that are available.

MX5huggy

I think this is fairly typical. They teach to the test and just go round and round the routes that are used. 

Give her as much time behind the wheel with you just driving as you can. 

I passed 1st time after 4 lessons then about 10000 miles of driving on L plates with my Girlfriend (now wife) and 2 lessons to remove any bad habits. 

The examiner noticed I didn’t know the roads I was not anticipating the next turn before instructions were issued I just drove what was in front of me and said it was the best drive they had had in a long time, I even used the gear box when slowing down. 

ciderboy2009

When I learnt to drive 35+ years ago I was never taken on a country lane or on a road with a speed limit greater than 30 so this is nothing new.

At the end of the day the driving test is more about learning how to control a car around town - you learn all of the other bits once you take your L plates off.

daveyjp

Nothing unusual.  A single lesson lasts no longer than a test and a test will only go on roads local to the test centre, so knowing them is advisable. Some test areas have tricky roundabouts and junctions which are likely to be encountered.

If other lessons are required either request them from the instructor, drive in another car between lessons or take Passplus once the test is passed.

mruncleman

I just can't see why it is not standardized to make sure a student has a variety of situations before passing. Some people are very good at being put in a new situation in there own, going it alone and figuring it out.  Some are really bad at it and it's clearly visible when you see the P on the car but they clearly have no idea what they are doing.

I think as a parent knowing your child will be going out into the dangerous world of driving without really having a decent knowledge of what they are doing is a scary thought.

Can you imagine never seeing a big fast paced round about in rush hour with few chances to get on and encountering it after you have passed your test only ever driving mini roundabouts.  It's then down to the experienced drivers to avoid colliding with the newbee.