I booked 12 hours of driving lessons with Tashman on the weekend of the 12th and 13th of September 2020 (6 hours on Saturday, 6 hours on Sunday) for a total price of $1080. I was picked up from their Chatswood 'location', but I believe that they send the same drivers across Sydney and hence that my review is relevant here.
I would have expected that for $90/hour I could have expected a car that was free of jumpers and sweatpants strewn across the back seat, free of used tissues soiling the door's storage and free of bits of old food in the drink holder and on the carpet. The car's derangement however was surpassed by its driver, David. With a stomach that was allowed to hang visibly from beneath his t-shirt and a pair of shorts that failed to cover underwear which failed to cover his bum crack, he was attired for a day of marathon watching 'How I met your mother', not a day of practicing his profession.
This attitude was soon confirmed as David, after arriving late on the Sunday, talked to me at length about my job, the threat of terrorism, that facsimiles should be called facmetaphors, that education is a plot to imprison young people constraining the supply of labour, that COVID 19 is not actually deadly and the Victorian shutdown is an experiment "to see if the people will take it" and that he can call up 1000 men willing to kill for money (his Lebanese countrymen as he went on to explain), among many other points of malicious incoherence. On many occasions I had to ask explicitly to be told that some aspect of my driving was incorrect. Multiple times I caught myself substantially exceeding the speed limit and veering onto the reflector lights without a word from David.
But beyond this I was taunted in the most hooligan and senseless manner. Such as being invited to "look at the horses, look at the horses" these clearly being cows. Being called a "coward" and a "hypocrite" because I expressed a desire to see a more courageous projection of man when I hadn't been in a fight. And his method of asking:
David: "Have you ever been shot at?"
Me: "No."
David: "Have you ever had someone shot at you?"
Me: "No."
David: "Have you ever been in a fight?"
Me: "When I was young." (internally: why the hell are we talking about this?)
David: "Did the other guy break your ribs or jaw or something?"
Me: "I was younger than that."
David: "So you haven't been in a fight then."
Me: "If you say so."
David: "Have you been in a [3 on 1]."
Me: "If I haven't fought 1 guy obviously, I haven't fought 3."
David: "You see, you haven't."
Then there was this exchange.
David: "You see that rock there? Why is it black?"
Me: "Ummm, because it's a slag heap?"
David: "Do you know that's why, or are you just guessing."
David: "Do you know?"
Me: "It's a guess. Is it coal, no, too light to be coal."
David: "You see you don't know everything." (at no point did I claim to be omniscient)
Me: "Alright what is it?"
David: "Oh no, if you don't know I can't tell you."
Bullying me is evidently an exhausting pastime for David as the man yawned almost continuously during Sunday's 6th hour (actually 5:49 of driving but at $1.50 a minute, who's counting). Which, fine, maybe there are people who are unable to focus for the duration of a 6 hour work day, but in that case it is business' responsibility to treat the 6 x 2 hour sessions I booked as separate sessions and assign them to separate instructors.
In fairness I do concede that my driving has improved markedly from the Saturday morning, though I could not say whether this is evidence that David was a good instructor, or just a that 12 hours is a dreadfully long time and besides, this does not come close to making up for being confined in such a wrenched space, with such a wrenched man.
Endured and recounted by Scott Andrew Masters. read more
