cost of driving

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Replicant said:
Cheeky runt, most people take at least two attempts i've heard.
I think "most" is a bit of an over-exaggeration. My instructor had an excellent 1st time pass rate, his ethos was to give you the foundations on which to build driving skills not just bosh you through your test and throw you out onto the road ASAP.
 
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Lopéz said:
I think "most" is a bit of an over-exaggeration. My instructor had an excellent 1st time pass rate, his ethos was to give you the foundations on which to build driving skills not just bosh you through your test and throw you out onto the road ASAP.

Well according to the DSA the failure rate is over 50%.
 
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25 hr's i think maybe 30. Pretty sure it was 10 2hr's plus a few single. AT £15 an hour.

So £375, but I didn't get on with my instructor he was pricey and he kept saying i wasn't ready when I was.

parents paid for it though for my 18th birthday, as I did my full bike license when I was 17

the instructor I wanted to go with was only £12 an hour special rates if you book like 10 lessons up and had almost 100% pass rate. But he was booked up solid for 11months.
 
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Replicant said:
You got any sources for this info?, i'd have thought violent crime and drug alcohol related deaths would be higher.

Oh god please dont ask me to dive all over the net for the statistics lol. Serioiusly its been all over the shop lately!

Definatly dodgy driving by those who pass in the minimum number of lessons 1st time are also some of those most at risk. Think about it the reason most older drivers dont come a cropper is their experiance and being able to deal better with problems when things start to go pear shaped or better still not get into bother in the first place.
 
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Replicant said:
Exactly!!, i wasn't, but to pay the same £17 for the hour i thought was a little unfair tbh considering i wasn't being taught but what could i do.


How was it unfair? Hes taking a risk letting you use his car that cost him probably £7K + to sit your test etc. You could bend it and then hes got a lot of aggro with insurance etc getting it sorted. Seems pretty cheap to me.

Oh and if you had objected you could have sat your test in your own car etc without dual controls........... DSA Examiners LOVE that....
 
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Dashik said:
How was it unfair? Hes taking a risk letting you use his car that cost him probably £7K + to sit your test etc. You could bend it and then hes got a lot of aggro with insurance etc getting it sorted. Seems pretty cheap to me.

Oh and if you had objected you could have sat your test in your own car etc without dual controls........... DSA Examiners LOVE that....

Lol, it was a 7 year old ford fiesta Ghia (ghia adds about 50p to the price lol) hardly taking a risk when theres a quaified examiner with a lot more experience than him lol, he was a nice guy so i dont mind and never objected paying the full hour for a 40 minute test, i let him drive me home limo style though :D

I think the Bsm corsas had the dual controls but this particular car didn't.
 
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I had about 25-30 lessons at £18 an hour, plus the cost of the theory and practical test. The week running up to my test I had loads of lessons so that I was well practised.

I didn’t drive much outside lessons as my dad wasn’t a very good passenger with me driving and my mother wasn’t much better. :(
 
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i did it all in < 3 months :D

i did about 13 hours in total with the instructors car (inluding 3 hour of before exam hours)

aaand i did lots of hours in my/my mums car :p
 
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Replicant said:
Lol, it was a 7 year old ford fiesta Ghia (ghia adds about 50p to the price lol) hardly taking a risk when theres a quaified examiner with a lot more experience than him lol, he was a nice guy so i dont mind and never objected paying the full hour for a 40 minute test, i let him drive me home limo style though :D

I think the Bsm corsas had the dual controls but this particular car didn't.
I was driven home by my instructor after passing, I think it's quite common practice because if you pass you're likely to be all excited and if you fail really depressed or angry so the instructor takes you back to save you stuffing it into a tree or whatever.
 
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Replicant said:
Sometimes nerves can simply get the better of a very good driver, perhaps even fatigue or plain laziness, doesn't mean they arn't perfectly capable though.
I'm still not sure on this one. The first thing (almost within 500 yards of leaving the test centre) I had to do was an emergency stop. I locked the wheels, applied cadence braking like I was taught, and stopped. I was convinced that was it. I'd blown it by skidding. So, for the rest of the test I drove as proficiently as I knew how, and he asked me to repeat the emergency stop before we returned to the test centre. He passed me, giving a minor fault for stopping "Under Control"
So I can only assume that the instructor knew it was just a case of nerves at first and the standard of driving was otherwise sufficiently high to pass the test. Maybe if I'd done something classed as dangerous (ie turning right across oncoming traffic) he would have failed me, and probably rightly so.

All this was nearly 11 years ago now so things may have changed!
 
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I had 10 2 hour lessons at £18 an hour (3 years ago), did it all in 4 months, though I had plenty of practice (hours and hours) in my dads company car (Ford Galaxy :D ) aswell.

If you pass 1st time (like I did) then expect costs of around £400-500.
 
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er let me see

30 Hours of lessons x 18 = 540
Theory Test = 21.50
Practical Test = 48.50

So in total 610.

Oh plus whatever your provisional licence cost 27.50? i think a couple of years back when i got it.

So looking at 650 total. bloody expensive in other words.

Oh and that was starting last november passing end of jan this yr.
 
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I just booked a practical test (8 week waiting period! :eek: )
I've had about 28 lessons, but it'll be something like 35 when my test comes around. Not the quickest learner, but there you are :) I havnt had any practise outside lessons though, so thats my excuse :p.

so.. 35 lessons at £14, plus theory, plus practical comes to about £550.
 
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Lopéz said:
I think "most" is a bit of an over-exaggeration. My instructor had an excellent 1st time pass rate, his ethos was to give you the foundations on which to build driving skills not just bosh you through your test and throw you out onto the road ASAP.

true the instructor i had had been teaching for almost a year and had a 100% first time pass rate on people who she started with. not too shabby i thought.
 
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