STEER CLEAR!!! Unreliable and unsafe: Instructor literally fell asleep during my lesson!!!
I am a 29-year-old licensed driver with no criminal record who had not driven a car in seven years. I signed up for six hours of lessons with A-1 in order to relearn how to drive prior to purchasing my first car after moving out of state by the end of the month. I only had driving experience in my home state of Alaska and have never driven in a bustling urban environment like Atlanta, so I was nervous about my lessons.
My first instructor, Barbarella, fell asleep roughly fifteen minutes into our two-hour lesson. After I pulled out of the parking lot at my apartment complex, Barbarella turned on the radio. After so many years not driving, I didn't want the added distraction of the radio. I politely asked if I could turn the radio off for that reason. Barbarella said that I could turn it off, but added, "It keeps me awake." I incorrectly assumed that she was exaggerating or joking about that.
Barbarella scrolled on her phone for awhile, as she did for the vast majority of the two-hour lesson. About ten minutes after I turned the radio off, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she had put her phone down on her lap and had gone quiet and started breathing heavily. When I stopped the car at a stop light, I looked directly at her and her eyes were closed. She was asleep.
I was shocked. I remembered what she said about the radio and immediately turned the radio on. This caused her to wake up and return to alertness. Despite my discomfort, I kept the radio on until the lesson was over, afraid she might fall asleep again. I didn't say anything to her about it because I was so surprised and embarrassed, and I don't like confrontation.
I hoped that I had simply had a bad driving instructor and still wished to complete the remaining set of two two-hour lessons to get my money's worth out of the experience, so I called A-1 and they kindly rescheduled me with a different instructor. However, they never asked what had gone wrong with my lesson, which struck me as odd -- as if they're used to having to do this. I felt obligated to call them back a few days later in order specifically complain about my experience with Barbarella because I felt I had a responsibility to notify them of her dangerous behavior.
The following week, I waited for my new driving instructor to arrive at the scheduled time. He never did. I waited for an hour just to be sure, but he neither arrived nor contacted me about being late or needing to reschedule. At this point I was fed up with A-1 and didn't want to waste any more time or money on such an unreliable experience.
I called A-1 and asked for a refund for that lesson and to cancel the remaining one, and they said they would comply and issue one. Two weeks later they still had not done so. When I called again, they argued me and insisted that my driver had shown up, despite all empirical evidence to the contrary. They said they would refund me but only after charging me a $30 cancellation fee for the two lessons that never happened. I was livid.
All of this was inconvenient and stressful for me, but I cannot help but imagine how much worse things have been if I was, for example, a parent scheduling lessons for my teenaged child, or somebody taking valuable time off work or other important obligations in order to take a lesson only for the instructor to be a no-show.
In conclusion: do not pay this company your hard-earned money or give them your time. Do your research and learn from my mistake. read more