Intensive driving courses

Sylv

Sylv

Sylv

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Joined
3 Jun 2006
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558
Location
Saafend
Anyone passed through one of these before? I've inherited a little bit of money and a bit of annual leave coming up. It's got to the point where I'm nearly 25, still don't drive because I've never been bothered to and never been able to afford it, that I'm being turned away for graduate jobs.
I've been checking out some courses in the area I live (Southend-on-Sea) and they're pretty damn expensive. Around £770 for a 40hr/5 days.

Are these worth it or shall I just pay for a few blocks over 'x' amount of time?
:confused:
 
To be fair, even if you learnt to drive the 'standard' way, it's still pricey. I did about 30 lessons in 2 hours blocks at around £20/hour (£20/hour is the cheap end of the scale!) - do the maths: 30 x 2 x 20 = £1,200 plus £31 for the theory test and about £61 for the practical test.
 
£770 is expensive.

I took an intensive course about 4 years ago now. Cost me £500 for 5 FULL days driving and the test at the end.

The instructor I had was brilliant. He pushed you hard, but he was fully aware he had to get you to test standard in 5 days, so there was no faffing around. No nice guy, you had to man up and learn.

The only thing id say is that is pretty mentally challanging. You're driving round pretty much ALL day. And for someone who doesnt drive then it will make you feel shattered. So be prepared not to be doing much during the evenings.

As long as your up for the challenge then go for it. But they do require a fair bit of effort from your part.
 
I took one last year - cost me about £700 for 5 days and the test

Highly, highly recommended. Living somewhere with no cars, the only driving experience had been golf buggies and tractors on an Estate. No public road driving AT ALL.

My instructor was a bit of a push over - really nice guy though!

Found the 5 days was a great amount of time for me, if not a little bit long, and by the end of it I was confident in my abilities. It was quite important I passed first time, due to the Mongol Rally starting and my taking part kind of dependent on having a driving license!!
 
Yep I did one of these, it worked a treat and I passed no worries, several years after failing and giving up (I'd never failed anything in my life before that so it sent me into a bit of a tantrum! :p)

I had to travel and did mine around Wood Green and Winchmore Hill - if you can drive in Wood Green, I think you can drive anywhere... :eek: Also did the pass plus afterwards which was definitely useful for motorway experience and getting used to the large turnoff roundabouts with loads of lanes.
 
Id double check on the free re-tests if you fail. Ive not seen any intensive courses offer these out anymore, due to the cost of them and the way they have to be booked through the DVLA in advance.

So if you fail, you will need to book another test off your own back.
 
Hmm getting married next year, the wife to be would like to use the money for a honeymoon, I'm inclined to agree, but I can't keep putting it off. I'll fish around for some more courses. I'm keen to get this out of the way..
 
Tbh its only going to get harder and more expensive the longer you leave it.

I booked mine when i did because I recieved a niftly little unexpected bonus from work. The timeline went like this....

Start of August - applied for provisionional.
Mid August - provisonal recieved, theory booked and got a late cancellation.
End of August - Took intensive driving course, and passed.

I got lucky with how quickly the DVLA processed my provisonal, and by getting a cancellation for my theory, but I went from nothing to a FULL license within a month. It was worth it.

The government is always looking at ways to 'improve' the driving test, adding additional things, making the theory test longer, and this has pushed costs up even more. So get it done whilst you can!
 
Sylv said:
Hmm getting married next year, the wife to be would like to use the money for a honeymoon, I'm inclined to agree, but I can't keep putting it off. I'll fish around for some more courses. I'm keen to get this out of the way..
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Driving will be much more useful over your lifetime than spunking it on a honeymoon, mate. If the first honeymoon you have isn't lavish, you can always have a second one later on! :)
 
If I had to take my test again, I would go for one of an intensive. A driving licence at the end of the week beats a few months losing a couple of evenings a week to lessons
 
I had 19 x 1 hour lessons at £20 each. 1 Theory test and 1 Practical test so just under £500 for me.

Find out exactly what it entails. A friend did one where she was also given her meals, she might have even stayed there for the week, can't recall.

I guess it depends how quickly you need to pass. Could always have a few private lessons and see how you take to it and try and judge from there if it's worth forking out for intensive.
 
whilst quite a few of you here have passed the test using the intensive courses, the reality is that not many do. they will tell you that there pass rate is high, but if you go to any test center and speak to an examiner they will tell you something different.

and as for the price of £770 (£19.25 hr) being expensive, it really isnt. to run a driving school it costs on average £15 per hour to the instructor this will include car cost to buy/lease, maintainance, insurance fuel, tax, NI, phone etc
so it puts the instructor on about £5/hr for his/her professional tutition
would you work for that?

how much per week do you spend on a night out? how much value for money out of that nights cost compaired to what you get from a licence?
 
It is a sizable chunk of cash to lay out but then so is 8-12 lessons and a test fail followed by another 5 lessons and a fail etc etc. If you can afford it in one lump then get it done, even more so if it includes retests. Good luck either way :)


and echoing what the previous poster mentioned, the pass rate wasn't spectacular on the bike course I took but then the lessons were with a group rather than 1 on 1 all day.
 
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