Don't stall your drive , choose another school !!( Burn those l-plates driving school chatham, Kent) (Other Schools)

Member Name: abcddcba

Product:	Other Schools
Date:	27/05/09 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap evening classes

Disadvantages: loads please read

The thought of taking driving lessons had made me very anxious and thus I had turned to Burn Those L-Plates diving school Chatham (as they advertised that they had special instructors who were excellent with nervous pupils. There was another apparent good point about this school.. they were charging the same price per lesson for evening learning as well . Most schools charge an extra for evening and weekend lessons.

So I after having a good read about them (nothing much to read there except basic information) their website link from www.yell.com I took the courage and rang them up on the local number provided on their website .. 01634 812 802 .

On the phone they were very friendly and at once put my fears to ease and talked me through lessons pices and packages etc. For their evening classes they had a female instructor who would be taking me through from A-Z. I learnt that they are a family run business consisting of three instructors who basically teach in the Medway, Gravesend and Maidstone region of Kent. So far so good I thought.

I had opted for an hour two evenings per week to see how things went and they could readily fit me in the times I wanted... they were ' not so much in demand in the evenings' was what I was told... ha ha later I was to learn that most driving schools are very busy in the evenings and weekends.

At that time there was only one special offer being offered .. 10 lessons for £170 on a manual car a year back.

There are several other packages that are on offer like an hor for £18, intensive courses , longer block-booking discounts , one hour Safe to Drive Assessment tests for local business d rivers , £110 for a pass plus course and such.


The first lesson went quite well, the lady was indeed very patient and good and talked me through the gears etc. The thing was the car (a Vauxhall corsa had dodgey gears, I had been trying gear practice for a few weeks on a friends stationary car, ... I was told that on the first day they did use a not so good car ) .

From the second day onwards the instructor started asking me if I would be keen on taking up two hours lessons at a go as my house was about 5miles from her office , well actually I did take a two hours lesson and saw that I used to get a bit flustered after an hour and a half or so. I told her that it had been agreed upon at the time of my registration that I would be given one hour slots, however each time I met her after that she would insit that I should take two hours .


The other cars that were brought for the lessons( three in the course of 10 hours ) were really old and one of them even had a very high biting point and kept stalling (nothing to do with a new pupil). They say 'we use new cars '...if only.

The instructor was very nervous which made me so much more apprehensive at the junction. I caught her parking on the kerb twice when she came to pick me up, she has been driving for 15 years it seems. The instructor would keep shouting 'go go go' at a junction when I could clearly see someone coming and then would be told 'excellent observation, I hadn't seen the car coming'.

I thought at the time that I was a very slow learner and was feeling really low when I was told that 'there are some people who are never meant to be driving' and ' If I still desperately wanted to learn, had I considered lessons in an automatic car'.


I had to ask the instructor what I was doing wrong as she never took the initiative to correct my faults which was very annoying .Even after eight hours I hadn't even learnt simple reversing.


The last straw came when I repeatedly got told that if I didn't change to higher gears quickly I was costing the instructor loads on petrol' and this was on my 8th hour, shouldn't the amount I was paying include the price of petrol already ... my partner was furious and insisted that I should change instructors which is what I did immediately but not before having lost all self- confidence . That's my story and luckily I did very well after having found a very good driving school just after this , about which I am going to write in my next review hopefully.

They do have nice offers like if you introduce a friend then they give you an hours lesson free and then they ask other drivers in their school to take mock tests for you(at a separate cost) when you near a test ...well they had the cheek call up and ask me about 4 months later if I wanted separate mock tests , regardless of my doing quite well with the new driving school.


I am not sure if I was stuck with the worst instructor in that Scool , but as a warning its better not to go with the school at all, as their cars are so bad.

I don't think anyone deserves to go through this sort of experience , if you ever think you are not comfortable with your instructor or get funny vibes just go ahead and change your instructor or even your driving school before you lose your confidence.

Summary: If you want to turn into a nervous wreck instead of a confident driver , take lessons from this scho