Driving school -- is idrivesmart worth the extra $?
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Anonymous
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Hi all - looking at driving instruction.
People recommend idrivesmart, but it seems to be twice the cost of the other driving schools. Is it worth the extra $? Would love to know thoughts! |
Anonymous
| All 3 of my kids did IDriveSmart and it was worth the money for us. Between the 3 of them, we interacted with multiple instructors and all were great. The only downside was it was sometimes hard to schedule lessons without a lot of advance notice. My kids were all more than ready for their test. Since we didn’t use a competitor, I can’t say anything is wrong with saving money. We just liked the idea of police offers (or retired officers). |
Anonymous
| Thanks - how many hours did you do with them? |
Anonymous
| I thought it was way too expensive, especially when parents have to drive 60 hours with the kids and they only do 6—we are ultimately thr primary instructors. My oldest did Greg’s and my next kid will do Greg’s as well. I don’t think it ultimately has an effect on their driving either way. |
Anonymous
| We have found the scheduling challenging with idrivesmart. There are not a ton of evening/weekend hours. I don’t understand who can do the early afternoon time slots. I don’t think it’s worth paying extra but it’s the only experience we’ve had. The instructor was a good teacher and for the final lesson they will take you through the driving test for the location where you are scheduled to take it. But that may be standard for all schools? |
Anonymous
| We thought the instructors were excellent. They were the only people we used so no idea how they compare to others. |
Anonymous
It's the easiest. Everything is online scheduling wise and there's plenty of options to consider, they take care of the admin stuff, and while you want to drive 60 hrs with your kid, it's not a hard rule to do so. You have to finish their requirements. Just because your kid gets their license does not mean they drive all over town ASAP  You can coordinate with them to drive more on your own schedule as you'd like.
Esp in pvt school, it's an easy option. |
Anonymous
| Agree with all of this. We had a great experience with I Drive Smart, and not having to go to the DMV to get the license was the icing on the cake for me. |
Anonymous
| I almost used iDrivesmart for my son, but it was too hard to schedule and I couldn’t find locations near us that had availability when I needed it. I went with a local place that picked him up from our house and did all his lessons over 1.5 weeks after school. He passed his test on the first try. |
Anonymous
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No— I found the instructor fine but nothing special and we had to do fair bit of supplementing.
The driving school threads sometimes end up sounding like paid ads for and against different options though. |
Anonymous
Any driving school will administer the road test at one of the last sessions so you don’t have to go back to DMV. We’re in VA, and I used ACE for both of my kids. I have no complaints, and since you’re booking a specific session there are no scheduling issues…seven sessions over the course of ten days and we were done. I looked at other providers including I drive smart but couldn’t justify the extra cost. |
Anonymous
What? I am not familiar with IDS but how does that work? YOu still have to go to DMV and pass the driving test right? You know like parking and all other stuff. |
Anonymous
Virginia allows the driving schools to give the test and you don’t have to go to the DMV. This is not an option in MD. |
Anonymous
| We used them for both our kids, thought the instructors were excellent both times. I have nothing to compare them to but they got the job done for us. |
Anonymous
Are you kidding? I had no idea about this. Bummer for us in MD. |