martine wrote:'Pink' licences are due to be phased out as the DSA has recognised the problem...it's quite likely a trainee instructor will have to have a fully qualified ADI in the back supervising while teaching.
drivingsteve wrote:Will the supervising ADI play an active part in lessons and intervene where necessary?
martine wrote:drivingsteve wrote:Will the supervising ADI play an active part in lessons and intervene where necessary?
Yes I guess so...any reputable ADI would I'd have thought rather than just sit back and watch the trainee make a hash of it.
As a part-time ADI what bugs me is the expectation from most of the public that driving lessons should be cheaper than employing a plumber (plumber's please don't take offence). My hourly rate is towards the higher end and then I see a driving school car offering 10 lessons for £99! Presumably a loss-leader but it's not very helpful in raising standards and professionalism of the industry.
drivingsteve wrote:It is strange how the public has differing expectations when it comes to paying for expertise. Off-topic, but another good example is, try telling someone it will cost them £40 to have their laptop repaired, and decades of family photos salvaged. Quite a different response to an electrician wanting to charge as much to swap a single plug socket for a double!
jont wrote:drivingsteve wrote:It is strange how the public has differing expectations when it comes to paying for expertise. Off-topic, but another good example is, try telling someone it will cost them £40 to have their laptop repaired, and decades of family photos salvaged. Quite a different response to an electrician wanting to charge as much to swap a single plug socket for a double!
IT is a particularly strange example. I have seen incompetent IT staff rushing around like headless chickens who are then praised for their hard work and dedication (even if the panic is caused because they did something stupid in the first place), while the competent ones who never have a system go down or can fix problems quickly and with little hassle tend to be ignored or seen as expensive overhead.
martine wrote:As a part-time ADI what bugs me is the expectation from most of the public that driving lessons should be cheaper than employing a plumber (plumber's please don't take offence). My hourly rate is towards the higher end and then I see a driving school car offering 10 lessons for £99! Presumably a loss-leader but it's not very helpful in raising standards and professionalism of the industry.
drivingsteve wrote:I thought I'd share something with potential learner drivers which caught me out when my 17 year old daughter was learning to drive.
When you phone a driving school to arrarnge lessons you may make the asusmption that you will be put in contact with a fully qualified ADI. As I found out to my annoyance, this might not actually be the case.
You could be assigned a PDI (basically a trainee instructor). If this is the case, you'll be charged the same fee, adn although the instructor's status os denoted by his pink license, he may not necessarily volunteer this information unless asked.
I realise everyone has to learn, and I have no problem with trainee instructors. However, I do have a problem with being charged the full fee for lessons from someone who is not fully qualified. In my case, it made me very angry to find out accidentally when my daighter told me about the instructor's "supervisor" who attended one of her lessons. It was only a bit of probing on my part that revealed she was being taught by someone who was not yet a fully qualified instructor. She isn't any more...
The moral of the story: don't assume anything and make sure you check your instructor's paperwork before handing over any payment!
Ralge wrote:drivingsteve wrote:I thought I'd share something with potential learner drivers which caught me out when my 17 year old daughter was learning to drive.
When you phone a driving school to arrarnge lessons you may make the asusmption that you will be put in contact with a fully qualified ADI. As I found out to my annoyance, this might not actually be the case.
You could be assigned a PDI (basically a trainee instructor). If this is the case, you'll be charged the same fee, adn although the instructor's status os denoted by his pink license, he may not necessarily volunteer this information unless asked.
I realise everyone has to learn, and I have no problem with trainee instructors. However, I do have a problem with being charged the full fee for lessons from someone who is not fully qualified. In my case, it made me very angry to find out accidentally when my daighter told me about the instructor's "supervisor" who attended one of her lessons. It was only a bit of probing on my part that revealed she was being taught by someone who was not yet a fully qualified instructor. She isn't any more...
The moral of the story: don't assume anything and make sure you check your instructor's paperwork before handing over any payment!
Pink/PDI licences were the reason for the advertising barb seen for a long time on AA cars "the only national driving school using fully-qualified driving instructors".
This barbed comment was aimed at BSM who made good use of PDI's (I'm not sure that's the case today, though and both the AA and BSM are owned now by Acromas).
martine wrote:...and then I see a driving school car offering 10 lessons for £99! Presumably a loss-leader but it's not very helpful in raising standards and professionalism of the industry.
drivingsteve wrote:I thought I'd share something with potential learner drivers which caught me out when my 17 year old daughter was learning to drive.
When you phone a driving school to arrarnge lessons you may make the asusmption that you will be put in contact with a fully qualified ADI. As I found out to my annoyance, this might not actually be the case.
You could be assigned a PDI (basically a trainee instructor). If this is the case, you'll be charged the same fee, adn although the instructor's status os denoted by his pink license, he may not necessarily volunteer this information unless asked.
I realise everyone has to learn, and I have no problem with trainee instructors. However, I do have a problem with being charged the full fee for lessons from someone who is not fully qualified. In my case, it made me very angry to find out accidentally when my daighter told me about the instructor's "supervisor" who attended one of her lessons. It was only a bit of probing on my part that revealed she was being taught by someone who was not yet a fully qualified instructor. She isn't any more...
The moral of the story: don't assume anything and make sure you check your instructor's paperwork before handing over any payment!
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