I bought a 10-hour package from this school, and ended up using 7 of the hours before I quit and…read moreasked for my money back for the remaining lessons. I got the guy that everyone says is super awesome according to their google reviews, Brahim. He was really nice during the free trial lesson, up until I agreed to buy the 10 hour package. After that the quality of lessons drastically declined.
The most disturbing thing is that the guy was always on his phone during the lessons, probably 80%-90% of the time we were in the car together. Between all his text messages and phone calls and screenshots and web browsing, I felt like I was driving around this guy in his mobile office. It was pretty nerve wracking at first, driving without him giving me any input as to what I should be doing, but I eventually got used to it. It got to be aggravating though when he would say I wasn't looking in my mirrors, but I don't know how he could see that when he was constantly looking at his phone. He also wouldn't listen to my questions and would give me generic answers over and over again until he finally stopped and listened to what I was actually asking him. Sometimes this process would waste a lot of time, and left us both pretty aggravated.
I signed up for lessons in English, but he didn't know a lot of the English driving terms, and either used Dutch words, or direct translations from Dutch to English. This caused a decent amount of problems. At one point he was telling me to "go in reverse" as I was driving around a corner. I was like "You want me to go in reverse? Here?" And he said yes, so I started to brake, and he said "No braking!" and again I asked "You want me to go into reverse without braking the car?" and he again confirmed that's what he wanted, so I started to put the car into reverse and he freaked out and told me to stop everything and pull into a company driveway, so I did that.Then he told me not to block the driveway, after he just told me to pull into it! Then he described that he wanted me to go into this driveway and then go in reverse while turning into the street, so that I end up pointing in the opposite direction. So I was like "Oh, you want me to do a 3-point turn?" And he said "Yes, that". So then I explained that "going in reverse" means putting the car into reverse and going backwards. (That's what the little "R" on the stick shift means!) Making a turn is called making a turn. He didn't care that he was using a literal translation of the Dutch term, which is a totally wrong word in English, and he just kept going on about what I did wrong. The fact that he doesn't know basic car driving terminology when that's how he make his living didn't bother him at all.
This experience was the WTF that broke the camel's back. Before then I also had problems with him showing up 10-15 minutes late and then ending the lesson on time, even when I was his last student, so he could have gone longer if he wanted to but he didn't. One time was ok, but the second or third time he did it was annoying.
I was also super annoyed that when I got in the car for the second lesson, there was a different instructor in the passenger seat than the guy I signed up with. I had heard this would happen at some point, so I could get a different perspective on my driving and what points I needed to work on. But doing it for the second lesson was kind of ridiculous, because I clearly wasn't ready for the exam yet. I didn't need another guy to tell me I wasn't ready and I needed work, I already knew that! And he didn't say anything the whole time about what I could do to improve my driving, or what I did wrong, he just made idle chit chat about where I was from and then at the end he ripped me apart told me I didn't know anything about driving, and that he was surprised I passed the theory exam, because I made so many driving mistakes. So he was useless and insulting! A winning combination.
To their credit, they did agree to refund me the money for the lessons I hadn't yet taken in the lesson package, so I didn't need to stick it out with someone I was starting to dislike. After all these bad experiences I was glad to get my time and money back. Especially since I had to travel an hour each way by public transport to Sloterdijk because they wouldn't pick me up at home, I am more than happy to try another driving school.
