Learning how to drive in a classroom

I’ve been recording my mileage on my driving sessions this week.  It’s good to monitor these kind of things should anyone ask me.  

Another good measure is how much time my Learners spend literally driving in a given hour.  I don’t mean sitting on the side of the road talking, I mean with wheels rolling, car moving.  It seems to me that with this increasing trend of Driving Instructors providing lessons at £9 per hour there must be lots of talking and precious little driving going on.  I think it’s really important to stay focussed on what your customer needs – and in my game that means as much time driving under professional supervision as is possible.

On that note, today, I’ve just finished a superb 30hr intensive course.  Despite the pretty poor weather conditions – raining every single day, it has been amazing what has been achieved over 7 days.  I always make a point of asking people at the end of the course if there is anything I could have done or said that would better prepare them for the course.  Today, I was told that the training was completely and utterly mentally and physically draining, and the analogy that my pupil mentioned I thought was worthy of repeating here.  She said that she found the days training a little bit like the feeling you get when you start off with a new employer – that feeling when you get back home of utter exhaustion.  She said that whilst she definitely found the 2^nd half of the week less demanding than the first, it was a tough first few days.

Now I find that kind of feedback is very beneficial.  You see, tomorrow I have an absolute beginner starting with me who has decided to do 10 lots of 3 hrs over the next 10 weekdays.  So he has decided to take things just a little bit easier than the intensive course; not 4 hrs a day but 3, and also with the weekend off in between.  Now of course we are all different.  We all have different needs.  But I reckon that there’s much to be said for placing more emphasis on how you like to learn than on the price.  The difference in price between those 2 courses  is £110.  So it’s a question of balancing out how well you will learn after 30hrs of instruction over 7 consecutive days compared to 2 weeks.  Yes, the 7 day option is cheaper, but are you going to be able to learn at that rate?

Many of my competitors who advertise on the radio and the like, use a model of using classroom training in the week.  They speak of ‘5 days’, not 7 days like I do but '5 days'.  So they are (apparently) putting into '5 days' what I’m doing over 7 days and yet also finding time in those '5 days' for their customers to be not behind the steering wheel, but in classrooms.   The thing is, and this is the real point, you can take the option my pupil who is starting tomorrow has, for CHEAPER than any of these organisations who do the classroom sessions. 

I ask you this, when you want to learn how to drive, what would you prefer, practising by driving, or sitting in a classroom talking about driving?