Lads, I'm 34 years old, 18 years ago I got five Cs and a D at GCSE. I've only got one job but I've got a wife and kid too. How much is it gonna cost me to learn to drive realistically? (I have no desire to learn to drive unrealistically).
Those one hour a week arrangements are a con. You'll never pass that way. Do a crash course, get it done in a week or two. It's the difference between taking years and spending faaasands and taking a week or two and spending hundreds.
>>3928 One lesson for each year of age is the usual rule of thumb - yes that many. As the previous lad says, if you're not practicing outside of that, then short courses like a week probably won't work.
I'm surprised by how much prices have gone up since I learnt to drive about 4-5 years ago.
To save money, you can go for block-booking which tends to give a good discount, or you can take advantage of the introductory offers from one instructor or company, then switch to another one when it runs out.
Personally I never liked the look of crash-courses. If you just want to pass as quickly as possible, then yes go for a crash course, but driving is one of those things that takes time to sink in and I reckon 12 hours of lessons over 3 months is better in the long term than passing your test through a crash course and completely forgetting everything a month later.
Also, if you can drive a few different cars while you're learning, it's great experience. Through a series of coincidences my instructor went through 4 different cars in the space of 3 months, plus I had some practice in my moms old Ka too. (In that ka, one of the coils burnt out while I was driving with her once, leaving it running on 3 cylinders. This resulted in 30 minutes of being shouted at to go faster, and her not believing me when I was trying to tell her something was wrong with the car not my driving.)
>>3928 I was being serious mate. £500 should do it. Do the block-booking crash courses, and hopefully it won't cost you that much and maybe you will pass first time around. If that doesn't happen. Get a car, insure it and drive around. It is unlikely that you will get stopped, so just drive around for a couple of months, then do some block-booking nonsense.
I got my motorbike license through an intensive course. I later learned to drive a car through a mix of paid lessons and practice in a friend's car. If you can get the time off work, I'd highly recommend an intensive course over weekly lessons, unless you can get a lot of practice between lessons.
The problem is that your skills and confidence fade between lessons, so a lot of time is spent just getting back to where you were at the end of your last lesson. With an intensive course, there's a continual progression. It's mentally and physically knackering, but I think it's the most effective way to learn.
>>3933 Whoa, are you seriously suggesting he commit driving without a licence? Yeah unlikely he'll get stopped but the consequences are too great to risk it.
>>3935 It is very unlikely that you will get stopped (unless the lad is black/brown). He is in a tight spot that I found myself in years ago. If there aren't any real avenues to do this properly, then there is no real choice. I believe learning to drive should be taught at school as something compulsory. It is a necessary skill and it should not be used as some sort of cow to be milked by the industry and government.
>>3936 But he only has to take someone with a full licence with him and he's actually learning to drive rather than earning six points and a disqualification.
>>3937 This. If you're unsupervised on a provisional, you're driving otherwise. You will also be dead easy for the rozzers to spot unless you're also committing insurance fraud.
Motorbikes are far more difficult than cars. There's no traction control, no ABS, two separate brakes and a hand-operated clutch. If you lock the front wheel, you're pretty much guaranteed to crash hard. You have to constantly scan for road hazards that could put you on your arse - a diesel spill, a pothole, a wet road marking or manhole cover, bits of debris. In addition to the standard on-road test bikers have to take an additional bike handling test on a closed course.
If you do cock it up, you don't have a seat belt or air bags to help you. Your only crumple zone is a polystyrene hat. When things go wrong on a bike, they go very wrong very quickly.
Thanks lad(s). I was interested in serious responses but also half taking the mick out of OPs idiosyncratic posting style.
I will admit that leaving driving until this late is a pain because getting large blocks of time / days off to commit to intensive courses (I could do an hour or two a day for however long but that's about the limit) is difficult. Also theoretically I could get my wife to sit in the passenger seat while I potter around at 30mph and get road raged at in the Fiat I bought her. That's a good idea thanks for bringing that up.
