I completed 13 lessons and paid over $900 to prepare for my road test. What Drive Rite delivered was negligence, not instruction.
The day before my test, my regular instructor Neil was replaced without notice by a new instructor, Sujata, who arrived with zero knowledge of my progress -- she asked if I had ever driven before. She spent the first 15 minutes on her phone, covered basics I learned months ago, and introduced techniques the night before my road test that directly contradicted everything Neil had taught me. The stress triggered a full panic attack and I had to exit the vehicle. When a passerby stopped to check on me, Sujata told them "she's fine" and did nothing.
I called Drive Rite that same day and explicitly told them: if Sujata was my instructor on test day, I would fail. They kept her assigned anyway.
I failed my road test. The examiner told me my nerves got the best of me -- which is a direct consequence of being destabilized by an unprepared instructor the night before.
After the test, Sujata drove away while I was still exiting the vehicle -- leaving me stranded in traffic. No concern for my safety whatsoever.
When I called to escalate, the representative told me to calm down. I later discovered through the chargeback process that Drive Rite's own internal notes from one week before my test rated my chances of passing as "50/50" -- information they never shared with me. I also discovered they had flagged my anxiety disorder internally as a behavioral concern while making zero accommodations for it. These notes were withheld from me as a paying customer and only surfaced when Drive Rite submitted them to dispute my refund request.
Their chargeback response also repeatedly misspelled my last name and referenced an instructor named "Jada" -- a name that does not correspond to anyone I was ever assigned. This is the level of care they apply to official documentation.
Drive Rite took my money, withheld critical information about my own readiness, ignored a direct warning that the instructor substitution would cause me to fail, and left me stranded in traffic. Their refund policy does not cover service that was never delivered. I have filed complaints with Capital One, the CFPB, and the New York Attorney General's office.
Do not give this school your money. read more