Do you know the most important questions to ask when selecting a driving school? Most people will answer: 1) How much are your lessons? 2) When is your first available appointment because I need to get my permit signed off ASAP?

While I understand the need to know cost (I have the lowest prices in the area) and wanting to get a permit signed off, the most important questions to ask are:

1. Will the student driver be safe?
2. What will the student learn? Will the instructor take the easy way out and just take the student on long straight drives, or will they actually be teaching important details and maneuvers?
3. Will the student and parent be getting what they should for the hundreds of dollars they are spending on lessons?

The Unfortunate Truth About Driving Schools

(If you’d like to skip this information, you can scroll down to Driving School Guidelines)

Before giving you the details of how to select a driving school, I’d like to explain that in-car drivers training is a legalized scam. This may seem like an odd statement for a driving school to make about the industry that it participates in, but it is the truth. About 98% of driving schools do not want you to know what I am revealing in this blog post. Most families of teenagers who need the mandated six hours of in-car training to get a drivers license work on faith that driving schools are reputable, honest, and will provide good training in return for money paid. Unfortunately, this is simply not true the majority of time.

Since the state requires people under 17 ½ to have six hours of behind the wheel training, work is guaranteed for anyone who wants to open up a school. Because of this, the industry draws people who are not really interested in giving good instruction, their only real interest is making money. It is seen as a money making scheme. The typical attitude of a school is: Give us your money. We’ll drive you around in a car for six hours. Here’s your certificate of completion. Bye. Did you learn anything? No matter what our rhetoric is, we really don’t care.

Before opening my school in Lake County, I worked in the driving school industry in the Bay Area for many years teaching for thousands of hours, so I know the facts behind the scenes. In all the Bay Area and the areas of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties, I know of only three schools (besides my own) that I believe are genuinely interested in actually providing students with good teaching.

Driving School Guidelines:

As you know, driving lessons are costly, so how do you know if you are going to get the training your student deserves for the money you are paying? Below are some guidelines to follow: (Read about Lake-Mendo Driving lessons to learn about what I teach students.)

• Ask to see the instructor’s regular drivers license and their DMV Occupational License to make sure they are valid.
  1. There have been cases when an instructor had their Occupational License revoked for major problems, yet they were still teaching. They were signing off permits and Certificates of Completion by forging another instructors name and number.
  2. In addition, there are owners of small schools who couldn’t make a lesson, so they have sent a relative to do the teaching. This relative had no Occupational License and no training. Like I said above, the industry is full of scams.
• Visually check to make sure the instructor has a brake on their side and a rear-view mirror on the inside of the windshield on their side. These are required by the DMV.
• Be careful of schools that use cars that appeal to young people. This is usually done as a marketing ploy. This isn’t a problem if safe driving practices and good teaching go along with the school, but do they?
  1. Ask other people if they felt their student driver was safe and received good training. Look for Yelp reviews to see what other people might say.
• Ask for details as to what will be covered in lessons. You and your student driver have the right to expect to learn many driving concepts for the money you pay. (Read about Lake-Mendo Driving lessons to learn what I cover for students.)
  1. There are many driving instructors, but few actual driving teachers.
  2. Poor instructors take long, straight joy rides with students because actual teaching takes skill, time, and effort.
  3. The DMV does not regulate the quality of teaching for schools. The only way to know if you will receive quality teaching is to ask other parents for references.
• Are students encouraged to drive excessively fast (as much as 85/mph), to “gun it”, or taught how to do “burn outs”?
  1. No reputable instructor or school should be encouraging or allowing illegal and dangerous driving. Your student’s life is at stake. In my opinion, this is child endangerment.
  2. This should be reported to the DMV.
• Picking up and dropping off your student: A professional school will pick up a student, provide the lesson, and then drop off the student at their home. The instructor will then go to a next lesson using the school’s time and money.
  1. If a school is picking up a student, then driving to pick up another student, and then having the new student drive the first student home, you can be assured this an unprofessional shortcut done for the sole purpose of saving the school time and money. The focus is not on what benefits the student but on what benefits the school.
  2. This can be a dangerous situation for your child because they could be in a car with an extremely inexperienced student driving the car. Combine this with students being encouraged to drive excessively fast, up to 85/mph, and it could be disastrous.
• Does the instructor stop to do personal errands, such as getting something to eat, going to the bank, buying flowers for grandma, etc. Is the instructor doing a lot of personal phone calls?
  1. The only personal thing an instructor should do during a lesson is stop to use the restroom or take an important phone call.
  2. If the student needs something to eat or drink then this can be done, but they should eat while not
  3. The instructor should eat before or after a lesson. A driver who eats while driving is a distracted driver; an instructor who eats during a lesson is a distracted instructor. You want an instructor who is completely engaged and focused on the student, the road, and the other cars on the road.
• Does the instructor leave a student alone in the car while they attend to something? The DMV mandates that a student is to never be alone in a car. Even if the instructor is going to use a bathroom, the student should not be left in the car.
• Is the car big enough so someone can comfortably ride along in the back seat?
  1. Does the school allow or encourage parents/guardians to ride along during a lesson? If not, this is a big, really big, red flag.
• Does the school give novice drivers a first lesson in the dark? Both the DMV and the National Transportation Safety Board advise against this.
  1. A novice driver should not be driving in the dark until they have some time behind the wheel.
  2. Many schools will schedule first lessons for a novice driver at night using the excuse that “they have to learn how to drive at night some time.” This excuse is used simply for their benefit to make money with no regard to the safety of the student.
• Does the school offer any type of guarantees about the DMV road test? Do they say they guarantee you will pass or get a higher score if you use their school?
  1. This is 100% against DMV regulations for driving schools and is a really bad sign.

As you can see, there can be many problems with driving schools. The only way the driving school industry will improve is for parents and students to file complaints with the DMV. The DMV doesn’t want to hear from one school reporting about another school, they only listen to the consumer, so there is nothing a school can do to report even the dangerous driving practices of another school.

To file a complaint about a driving school, visit the DMV official site and fill out form OL620 and mail it to the address given on the site. If this link does not work for some reason, search for CA DMV driving school complaint and you should find the website.

If you decide to take lessons with Lake-Mendo Driving School, I will definitely do everything I can to give your student the solid professional, safe training he or she deserves.

Sharon Michaels
Lake-Mendo Driving School
707-295-1994