Driving Instructors

A Driving Instructor is the person that will actually deliver your Driving Lessons. Some Driving Instructors work on their own and some work within a Driving School. There are currently around 40,000 approved driving Instructors registered with the UK’s governing body, the DVSA.

There are two types of Driving Instructor:

ADI (Approved Driving Instructor) Fully qualified:

Fully qualified Instructors will have have completed a rigorous training program and must display a green badge in the windscreen of their tuition vehicle and will be licenced to deliver paid for tuition.

PDI (Provisional Driving Instructor) Trainee:

Trainee Instructors must display a pink badge and although they are licenced to deliver paid for tuition, they are still in the qualifying process and have still to pass their final exams.

Never pay for Driving tuition unless an operating licence is clearly displayed in the vehicle as the Instructor may be unlicenced to provide tuition.

Independent Instructors are not governed by a School operating policy and will vary enormously in the standards, service and tuition they provide.

A common misconception by the general public is that ALL Driving Instructors are all the same and although fully qualified instructors would have passed their qualifying exams, they vary enormously in the standards of both the customer service and level of tuition they offer.

Unfortunately, around 50% of all Driving Instructors never take any further development training from the day they qualify and it stands to reason that they would be lacking in recent developments such as client centred learning.

The vast majority of the general public will be unaware of this factor and often choose their driving lessons solely on price! This can be a huge mistake and all to often the “hidden cost of cheap” becomes obvious when a lack of progress is experienced.

Driving Instructors that have taken responsibility for their own development training will be more confident in their ability to offer a high standard of driving tuition and the price they charge will reflect this. Many successful Driving Instructors will have several customer reviews to offer a completely unbiased view of their services and level of tuition.

Driving Instructors that have not taken the time to keep up to date, will generally be the ones that offer “cheap” driving lessons and often advertise themselves as the cheapest Instructor in town to attract sufficient work to survive.

It is very wise when learning to drive, to seek as many customer reviews as possible and not simply choose the cheapest lessons available.

Orchard School of Motoring have local Driving instructors in Cornwall who are fully qualified and no trainees are used to deliver driving lessons. ALL Instructors work under the umbrella of the driving School and therefore adhere to a strict code of conduct, mission statement and have periodic internal development training to ensure they remain at the forefront of their profession.