Driving Lessons - How many a week?

reflex said:
Im thinking of learning soon aswell...I looked at a 30hour Semi-Intensive course that was around £500 ..Not really into cars so i was hoping to do that to 'get it out of the way'
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Because of the way I learn (i.e. All thrown at me at once, repeating things lots etc) I'm planning on doing a weekly intensive course - because I've had no driving experience they quoted me £770 for 45 hours and the test, I've just got to sort out and pass my theory myself first.
If I were to do 1 or 2 hours a week it would probably take me at least a year to learn - its just the way my brain works I guess.

If I'm honest, I'm not worried if I fail the first time - I can then always book extra lessons to sort out whatever I failed on, the company also said they do them cheaper for people who do intesives but don't pass.

I could probably find an intensive course cheaper, but in the long run I want to get my bike licence as well and they do bike intensive courses too - I'd rather stick to the same company as I will know what I'm getting
 
I had it put to me that 2 hour lessons are inefficient - your concentration peaks at about 40ish minutes on average and so for the final stages of the 2 hours, you arent really taking in anything.

I had 9 1 hour lessons plus driving about with my parents and passed first time.
 
DRZ said:
I had it put to me that 2 hour lessons are inefficient - your concentration peaks at about 40ish minutes on average and so for the final stages of the 2 hours, you arent really taking in anything.

I had 9 1 hour lessons plus driving about with my parents and passed first time.
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Good to here, think the plan is to do the one hour lessons then and just see how it goes and bump them up if need be come nearer my test.

Now just to get the lessons sorted out now and an aim to when I want to pass. :D

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
I did a one hour lesson every week and then for the weeks before my test I did two hour sessions :) Worked well for me :)
 
why do people have so many lessons? I done 8 myself including the one before my test. 20 lessons is a lot of money, i dont think it really hard to learn how to dirve tbh.
 
teaboy5 said:
why do people have so many lessons? I done 8 myself including the one before my test. 20 lessons is a lot of money, i dont think it really hard to learn how to dirve tbh.
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It's hard to learn to pass a test though. If you forget to check your mirrors when you need to even once when there's other cars around they can fail you :(
 
teaboy5 said:
why do people have so many lessons? I done 8 myself including the one before my test. 20 lessons is a lot of money, i dont think it really hard to learn how to dirve tbh.
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You must be special.
 
DRZ said:
I had it put to me that 2 hour lessons are inefficient - your concentration peaks at about 40ish minutes on average and so for the final stages of the 2 hours, you arent really taking in anything.

I had 9 1 hour lessons plus driving about with my parents and passed first time.
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When I was learning I found 1 hour lessons to be far too little, it would take 10-15 minutes to get to the roads my instructor wanted me to drive around (I was living in a city centre at the time), then 5 minutes for him to explain what we were doing, then another 10 minutes to get home afterwards. Thats half the lesson gone.

Two hour lessons were much better for me. I also didn't have anyones car to practice in, so even if I wasn't taking anything in, I was getting the time behind the wheel, which is the main thing you need.


Mick.
 
Mickey said:
You must be special.
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I am not special at all, any of my m8's at the time only took around 8 as well and everyone passed the first time and this was a time in NI weere they were failing you for anything. Its not hard to learn in my opinion.
 
teaboy5 said:
I am not special at all, any of my m8's at the time only took around 8 as well and everyone passed the first time and this was a time in NI weere they were failing you for anything. Its not hard to learn in my opinion.
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Yes, OK.
 
Mickey said:
Yes, OK.
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Couple of my friends only had 6-8 lessons before passing, did a lot of stuff with their parents, probably a lot cheaper too :p

I've taken 22 hours of lessons in 40 days... :o
 
Kroegen said:
I would have thought it would be much easier to learn to drive at a much younger age like 17 :p
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I couldn't afford to do my lessons at 17 - my dad died when I was 16 so any savings I had were used for his funeral and I was suddenly having to survive in the real world while going to college full time - driving lessons were the last thing on my mind when I was 17
 
I've currently had 6 hours worth of lessons at 4 hours per week (£80 for 2x2hr lessons) and I'm still getting to grips with the controls of the car. I'm 24 and not having any private practice because I live 100 miles away from my parents, and don't really want to hassle any my friends to let me drive their car.

I can't imagine anyone passing in 6-10 hours without private practice because the instructor would have to be extremely irresponsible in my opinion. "...and this is how the clutch pedal works, now drive onto that 3 lane roundabout". I'm fairly sure there would be no possible way to get my instructor to teach that fast. He prefers to make sure I understand something first, and then drive, as opposed to "chucking me in at the deep end". I know a girl that on her second lesson was told to pull onto a dual carriageway from a junction on the right. She ended up stalling the car at the junction and rolling out into oncoming traffic and narrowly avoided being hit by a lorry travelling at 60mph. She hasn't had a lesson since.

I actually like learning to drive at a slower pace. Being 24 I earn far more than I did at 17, so the cost isn't really a problem. Out of the people I know that drive probably 70% of them had a crash in their first year. The way I see it if I have 10 lessons and then have a crash straight after passing it's probably going to be more expensive in the long run than having 30 lessons and being able to avoid that crash. As my instructor keeps saying "There is a lot more to driving than just being test-worthy" (although admittedly the more lessons I take, the more money he earns, so maybe I should take that with a pinch of salt. :D) .
 
1 hour lessons are really quite pointless.

By the time you have got to the certain road or area you need to practice your already a 1/4 into your lesson, plus, allowing the same amount of time to get you back home/work then you only have 30mins to practice in.

I did 2 hours per week. In total I had 15 lessons and 2 tests. It took me 4 months to the day to pass. I only had one lesson between the two tests as my instructor insisted I was at test standard but just made a silly mistake on a huge roundabout (so we just went round this roundabout loads of times in that 1 lesson) then I passed :)

I chose to learn to drive at 17 as I had quite a lot of excess income. I used to work in sales and without blowing my own trumpet was pretty good at it and used to double my wages through comission. I used to work about 40hours per month (10 a week) and earn £500. Which always seemed a lot compared to my friends. So having all that spare money, made sense to use it to learn to drive.

Ano now... I have my own business which wouldn't of been possible if I couldn't drive.
 
i done 4 2 hour lessons a week then had the test on the friday and failed. then 2 1 hour lessons over 2 weeks and passed

imo 8 hours a week is too much, but 1 hour lessons are a bit useless cos you dont really get to do much, especially is the test centre is about 30 mins drive away and you want to practice

i had 10 hours of lessons but had loads and loads of driving experience with my dad and grandad, get as much experience out of lessons as you can, ideally with different people
 
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