The tale of the daughter with dyspraxia....

I finished my intensive driving course in Grantham this afternoon, and nipped into Sainsburys at Bourne.  Got out my car and had an interesting chat with a chap who approached asking me about an intensive course for his daughter.  He wants her to learn in an automatic due to learning difficulties, and has a car for her to do her lessons in.

He took an interest in doing a Driving Instructors course with a company called LDC 3 years ago, spent over £3000 on the course but didn’t follow it through because he discovered the prices of driving lessons were so low that it wasn’t worth his while starting it up as a new career.  Now I personally find that interesting; the discussion unfolded.....

He said that when he came into the car park and saw my sign on my car that my 7 day 30 hr intensive course is £540, he considered that to be very ‘reasonable’ as he put it, and that was why he approached me.  I explained to him what my normal prices are (see my previous blog below), and I  showed him my PAYG and block booking prices.  He said that his only reservation was whether his daughter would be able to stay focussed for the full 4 hrs on one of my sessions on the intensive course, because of her dyspraxia.  He wondered how much of the time was parked up talking compared to actually driving.  I told him that yesterday I clocked my mileage that my Learner did on his intensive course and it was 75 miles – so I was saying to him that I encourage an awful lot of good quality, focussed driving – there is not time to be sat on the side of the road, ‘chewing the cud’ so to speak.  He looked concerned.  His worry is that his daughter will not be able to do that.

I then suggested that perhaps his daughter would benefit from the approach a recent Learner of mine took, which was 3 hrs every weekday for 2 weeks.  That amounted to 30hrs, he took his test and comfortably passed first time.  To which he sounded very enthusiastic, and said that sounded right up her street.  That was, until I told him that was NOT an intensive course, that was 2 block bookings which amounted to £650 in total.  To which, if you could have seen his face, it was a picture, he clearly was not happy with paying the extra £110 to get a course that better fits his daughters' needs.

And therein lies the problem in our industry.  In one 10 minute conversation we have gone full circle.  This chap had paid out over £3000 for a course to become a Driving Instructor but when he realised how cheap the lessons were, he gave up his course.... and yet, for the sake of £110 (the price of a nice evening out with his Wife), he will not pay for his Daughter to have the course that more sensibly fits her needs.  

As I say, I find that very interesting.  Especially when you consider this is a lass with Dyspraxia – I’ve had experience of teaching 2 Learners with Dyspraxia and my experience tells me that you ignore that fact at your peril.