The standard approach for learning to drive in the UK for many years has been to aim to pass your test in a manual transmission vehicle rather than an automatic. However automatics are becoming more popular.
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Automatic Lesson Availability
Without doubt one of the biggest impacts to the driver training industry of the Covid-19 pandemic was the huge backlog. The UK lockdown meant that driving lessons and driving tests (both Theory & Practical) were all cancelled. Now considering nearly one million people turn 17 every year, it’s no surprise that a backlog of over 500,000 people were left wondering when they would be able to take lessons and of course pass their test. As we come out of restrictions, the backlog is being worked through and the DVSA (who run the driving tests in the UK) have been recruiting more driving test examiners to increase testing capacity.
This along with the fact that historically driving instructors that deliver automatic lessons have made up approximately 10% of the whole industry, means that automatic lesson demand outstripped the capacity by some distance.
Having a large pool of automatic vehicles even without the instructors means that we can have a better chance to help when things don’t go to plan. Of course, your RED driving instructor will work very hard to make sure this isn’t required, but sometimes cars will breakdown. By having a large pool of cars, we can be much quicker than other schools at getting a new car. This limits the impact on our RED learners and reduces the risks of there not being a car available for critical lessons or even your practical test.
Our RED driving instructors are typically trained by us and therefore we’re confident that you’ll receive a premium service, which is focused around a client centred approach. This means the driving instructor will get to know your style of learning – for example when learning a new skill, you might prefer to watch someone else perform it, then replicate, or you may prefer to just have a go and let the instructor give you advice and feedback.
As one of the largest driving schools in the UK we pride ourselves on offering a premium service. But don’t just take our word for it! RED has been voted driving school of the year two years in a row by Intelligent Instructor a leading independent news and events company in the driver training market. Plus we ask for feedback from our learners, not only to understand their experience, but to improve our service moving forward. Therefore we are extremely proud of our 4.6/5 rating on Trustpilot from nearly 7,000 reviews.