£2499 for an intensive driving course? This is a price that a so called intensive driving course provider advertises for a week long course. Okay, this may not be out of the reach of some peoples budgets and if you're in a hurry then is there a max price?
The thing that people don't realise is that these national companies that advertise these courses actually have no Driver Training credentials or trainers at all.
The DVSA, in their infinite wisdom, have a "business service" booking system which can be used by third party providers from outside the industry. This, particularly on the back of Covid-19 has led to an increase of external marketing business's capitalising on this service and using it to book tests and offer courses to people looking to drive.
In the case of one particular "National intensive" driving school, they are offering week long intensive courses for an inflated price. Now if they were actually a driving school with instructors to actually run the courses then this wouldn't be quite so bad right? This sadly is not the case as this particular company do not employ a single driver trainer. They take about £1400 off the customer as a "booking fee" and ask the remaining £1100 to be paid directly to the Driver Trainer. This company then goes online and brings up the DVSA register of instructors (available to everyone) and start to send messages to instructors in the customers area advertising a 40 hour intensive course for £1100. The company has made a tidy profit of £1400 for merely looking for a local instructor who can do an intensive course for £1100.
Okay, so what if they manage to find you an instructor? That's not the end of the world right?
Wrong! If we break this down, they are looking for an instructor to do an 40 hour course for £1100, that equates to £27.50 per hour earnings for the Driver Trainer, if they find one.
In most areas of the UK, the average cost for a reputable driving instructor is £36 to £45 per hour and the average wait time for a credible instructor is upwards of 6 weeks. What driving instructor wants to work for £27.50 per hour? The answer to that question is quite simply, the instructors that are not particularly great at their job. As the saying goes, "Pay peanuts, get monkeys".
So, if the "national intensive" company is successful in locating an available instructor with no work on and doesn't mind working for peanuts, then you have found yourself an instructor and the national intensive company has pocketed a tidy £1500 for finding that instructor for you. Credit to them, it's a good business model! But it's ripping the you off.
So the best bet has to be contacting a local reputable driving school directly.
We offer intensive courses for £1895 (40 hour course) and we actually have our own instructors. No one apart from the instructor gets paid which means that you are getting a credible trainer at a price they want to work at.
It's worth thinking about...
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