Spent some time last week in the company of five driving instructors for a feature I’m writing for Auto Express magazine. It was fascinating, because I’ve had little involvement with these people – who spend most of their time teaching teenagers – since I was, well, a teenager.
Their biggest gripes are with the ‘learning to drive’ industry, rather than with candidates always reaching for their mobile phones or the rise in traffic volume.
They aired their concerns about how some pupils don’t know they’re being taught by an unqualified instructor. A pink windscreen badge rather than a green one is the giveaway, but there’s no obligation for the instructor to inform the learner. Bizarre.
They were also not massive fans of the driving instructor schools, turning out more operators than an area needs. You know the ones, they advertise with slogans about how anyone can do the job and be their own boss. It’s true, said my panel of experts, anyone can be a driving instructor. But can they be a good one? The town they were all from had 36 instructors 15 years ago. Now it has 104.
They also believed it was time there was some sort of feedback system to allow examiners to report to the Driving Standards Agency – which controls the industry – when they believe certain instructors aren’t doing the job properly. For example, if one instructor’s candidates are regularly failing on the same thing, clearly the teaching isn’t up to scratch. Seems odd that such a set-up doesn’t exist already.
Breakdown Cover from 
