How do driving instructors make money?

[Zephirum]

There must be a catch in the small print?

[Mr Macaw]

Same ad on the back of the cars as I saw when I learnt to drive in 1997.= There was no catch then. What's odd is the price hasn't risen much at= all since then.

-- =

Some believe that the world converting to the metric system would greatl= y simplify our measures. But look what would really happen to our old cl= iches: A miss is as good as 1.6 kilometres. Put your best 0.3 of a meter forward. Spare the 5.03 metres and spoil the child. Twenty-eight grams of prevention is worth 453 grams of cure. Give a man 2.5 centimetres and he'll take 1.6 kilometres. Peter Piper picked 8.8 litres of pickled peppers.

[GB]

The Triumph Herald was a really nice car. :)

[charles]

It had a superb lock - ideal for parking. My mother had one.

[Tim Lamb]

Certainly easy to drive with good all round visibility. There were a couple of issues during the test however.... the road leading away from the test centre was a slight down gradient. Driving school cars of the day tended to have the engine tick over set high to minimise stalling. Downhill in top gear we were quickly exceeding the 30mph limit! Also, the gearbox had just had some attention. 1st. gear required two hands which got some curious looks from the examiner.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The linkage between gear lever and box had lots of bushes and washers etc which wore out. At one time, there was an overhaul kit available with all the wearing parts. Made a huge difference to the change quality.

The Vauxhall Viva HA was popular with many independant instructors long past its sell by date. Very light steering and gearchange.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , charles escribió:

So did mine. Until one of the wheels fell off on the M62. :)

[NY]

It can work the opposite way, though.

I learned on a Honda Civic in 1980/81 - whichever version of the Civic was current at that time. It had a horrible gearbox - very clunky and very unforgiving if you tried to engage reverse (with the clutch down, naturally) before the car had come to a complete rest, which made it pain if you were alternating between first and reverse when doing a three-point turn, especially if your instructor had chosen a very narrow road which even an expert couldn't do in just three manoeuvres - in order to give you more practice.

In between lessons I practiced on my mum's Renault 6 which had a hockey-stick coming out of the dashboard (like the Citroen 2CV) which looked weird but was actually very easy to use because the linkage was smooth and there was a very large lateral play between the first/second and third/fourth plane so I never hit fourth instead of second. I mentioned the fact that the Renault was a bit more forgiving in letting you engage reverse while still going forwards slightly or first while still going backwards slightly and how this speeded up rapid manoeuvres when there were people behind you waiting for you to finish. He said that Honda and Datsun were known for that restriction in the gearbox.

After I'd passed I bought a Renault, partly because I heard of an old one for sale at the garage when mum took her car to be serviced and partly because I liked it more.

Interesting that the Honda reverse restriction persists to this day: all the cars I've had (Renaults 5s, VW Golfs, Peugeot 306s/308s) have been fine but when I started driving my girlfriend's Civic (a 2003 model) and when she then replaced that with a Honda CR-V, I had to get used once again to coming to a complete stop and waiting a second or so with the clutch down before I could move the lever into reverse.

[Tricky Dicky]

Just followed a learner today and the bumper advertised 10 lessons for £9

9 which with minimum wage would just about cover the instructors wage never mind the overheads. There must be some catch such as signing up for a mini mum number of lessons in order to get the 10 lesson offer.

Incidentally, I learned in an Austin 1100 which with minis seemed to be the vehicle of choice with all the local driving schools in the late 60s.

Richard

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Odd. Thought most decent manual boxes had synchromesh on reverse too these days. To stop a crunch if you hurry into reverse. My brother's BMW has. And it's quite old.

[GB]

From the smiley, I assume your mum was okay?

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , GB escribió:

Well, seeing as she's 75 and currently kicking her legs up somewhere in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico last time I heard), presumably so.

I was in my baby chair in the back seat. I'm fine, thank you :)

[GB]

Good news all round, then.

[Tony Bryer]

My mum had one at the time I was learning to drive - I could not get on with it so did nearly all my pre-test driving on the instructor's

1100/1300. Biggest issue IIRC was the gearing: it wouldn't run properly at 30 in top, also the very long (for size of car) bonnet.

[Alan Dawes]

1) The 10 lessons include one or more theory lessons in a class room with up to 20 others. 2) The offer lessons are likely to be half an hour or 40 minutes and / or require pick up from a central place not your home. 2) The cheap lessons will be at unpopular times in the week. Weekends and evenings when most people want lessons will be much more expensive.

That came from an ex-driving instructor who said you either had to work all hours to get enough to live on or have a second job.

Alan

[Huge]

[15 lines snipped]

A friend who was made redundant from an IT job & decided he didn't want another tried being a driving instructor.

He's back in IT now. He said you couldn't make a living as a driving instructor.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Huge escribió:

I couldn't do it, full stop. I'd be in prison for murdering one of my pupils in no time.

Think Maureen.

[Mr Macaw]

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:45:01 -0000, GB wrote:=

I've never heard of someone who's just passed their test buying a new ca= r. They always get a used car or their parents' old car. A new car is = far too expensive for someone that young, and too much possibility of ex= pensive damage with their inevitable first crash, and because of that a = much higher insurance premium.

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Mother: "Why are you home from school so early?" Son: "I was the only one who could answer my maths teacher's question= ." Mother: "Oh, really? What was her question? Son: "Who threw the paper aeroplane at me?"

[Mr Macaw]

Tighten the clutch cable. Synchromesh will make up for a clutch that's = almost disengaged, but reverse never seems to be as good.

I had a Honda automatic with a gear lever that came out of the steering = column (and moved parallel to the indicator stalk). I found it terrible= to use, it was impossible to move it only one notch.

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Please tell your pants it's not polite to point.

[Mr Macaw]

I'd find her antics amusing unless it cost me money when she damaged my = car.

-- =

Worlds most powerful nob enlarger - a space suit with a fly zip