I Drive Smart vs Greg's vs Easy Method Driving School?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've found Greg's TERRIBLE in terms of availability of in-car times. Dd is done with the class, and has been checking their website daily and has never seen any open times to schedule. I called once, and the receptionist said there's not available beyond what is on the website (which is, literally, nothing).

+1

I also have a friend who was unable to schedule or reach anyone there until the hours expired. Not a good service.

[Anonymous]

NP here with a bit of a related hijack. Question for all of you parents of drivers.

We have not done much driving, in part because my daughter is very nervous about driving in the DC area. We live in Chevy Chase and traffic is stressful! We have gone out to Less populated areas and done a lot of practice in parking lots, but I really would like to get her out on the road in our neighborhood. I am wondering if it might make sense to do a couple of sessions with a driving instructor just to get her a little more confident than I am able to? She will probably do her drivers Ed class in the late spring or early summer, so this will be before then. Does that make sense? Or is that crazy? Any suggestions are welcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here with a bit of a related hijack. Question for all of you parents of drivers.

We have not done much driving, in part because my daughter is very nervous about driving in the DC area. We live in Chevy Chase and traffic is stressful! We have gone out to Less populated areas and done a lot of practice in parking lots, but I really would like to get her out on the road in our neighborhood. I am wondering if it might make sense to do a couple of sessions with a driving instructor just to get her a little more confident than I am able to? She will probably do her drivers Ed class in the late spring or early summer, so this will be before then. Does that make sense? Or is that crazy? Any suggestions are welcome.

No it is a good idea if the cost is not an issue for her. Honestly I found driving with my kids very stressful and would have loved to hand it off to someone. #1 kid probably did not get enough practice in because we all dreaded it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here with a bit of a related hijack. Question for all of you parents of drivers.

We have not done much driving, in part because my daughter is very nervous about driving in the DC area. We live in Chevy Chase and traffic is stressful! We have gone out to Less populated areas and done a lot of practice in parking lots, but I really would like to get her out on the road in our neighborhood. I am wondering if it might make sense to do a couple of sessions with a driving instructor just to get her a little more confident than I am able to? She will probably do her drivers Ed class in the late spring or early summer, so this will be before then. Does that make sense? Or is that crazy? Any suggestions are welcome.

There are two main parts to driving - learning to handle the car in various situations (different speeds, turns, lane changes) and learning to manage driving with other vehicles, pedestrians, and distractions. We did a lot of the car handling instruction and very light traffic (e.g. drive to close store) and let the driving school deal with real traffic (they are more experienced to know what each kid needs, and the kids will listen better to an adult who is not a parent.)

It sounds like you've done the initial parking lot practice. Now take her to another neighborhood that is single family homes with driveways (not many cars parked) and maybe a "main road" through it and simply practice individual skills - right turns (looping around in the neighborhood), then left turns, stops at stop signs, etc. You can use google maps to pick a place if you don't know one near you. We practiced in East Montgomery Village FWIW and also the Olney area. Go at 8 am on a Saturday or Sunday morning - almost no traffic. After that, have her drive to some of your usual close errands spots, also very early in the morning. If you get her to that point, the driving instructor won't need to spend much time on car handling and can then spend more time on dealing with traffic. After our DC first 2 hr lesson with instructor, they were ready for learning highway speeds, so we did the ICC on early Saturday mornings before next lesson.

[Anonymous]

Reviving this chain with a follow-up question - which driving program is best if you only need the on-road portion, Behind the Wheel, because DC already had drivers ed class at school, and you want to knock out all the road lessons during a two-week stretch in summer? Is there a way to lock those lesson times in now so we don’t have to fuss with with later and jockey for position etc?

[Anonymous]

I worked for Easy Method. The owner is an idiot. I've watched him write 100s of fake 5-star reviews. Greg's is over-rated and the retired "old cops" are doing it for the money, hence the reason why it's so expensive. As far as scary videos. All videos MUST be approved by MVA so if you or your child watched "scary/bloody" videos then it wasn't approved. I'd go with either Street Smarts or Elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I drive smart: we liked it. They were not mean but they were strict about time. Be there on time. Car accidents are the leading cause of death in this age group so I wanted someone who took it seriously.

I liked I Drive Smart for my kids too. In addition to much of the above, it offered the chance for my teens to have pleasant interactions with police, which was helpful and important. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

There must be some covert action against I Drive Smart by rival companies. Everybody I know (and my two older kids) used I Drive Smart.

[Anonymous]

I drive smart is a total money grab. The curriculum is mandated, and not any different with Potomoac Driving School or Greg's or any other one, it's just more expensive

Go with whatever driving school has the class at a time that works for your child. We had one do Potomac and one do Greg's. Both are great drivers

[Anonymous]

Scheduling in car lessons with Greg’s was difficult. The Montgomery village location instructors we had were questionable. We ended up driving to Frederick for the last in car and that was so much better (but far!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There must be some covert action against I Drive Smart by rival companies. Everybody I know (and my two older kids) used I Drive Smart.

And I feel like it’s the opposite— anytime anyone posts anything negative about IDS there is a lot of activity which doesn’t seem organic, but who knows.

We used IDS and I wasn’t really impressed but not sure any of these schools is really better than the others.

[Anonymous]

We used Greg’s for DS. It was just okay. Not impressed with the behind the wheel instructor who was kind of old and crusty. For DD we used I Drive Smart and it was so much better. Easy to schedule online. You can search by instructor number, so if you like one, you can search for other time slots with them. You also search by gender. DD only wanted a female instructor. The second instructor she got allowed her to practice the back-in parking in our car so she could get used to the feeling it in the car she’d be testing in. She also had her drive to the testing site so that they could practice the driving test route and peek inside the parking lot course. Totally worth the money for our DD who was very nervous about the test. It really calmed her nerves to have all that prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here with a bit of a related hijack. Question for all of you parents of drivers.

We have not done much driving, in part because my daughter is very nervous about driving in the DC area. We live in Chevy Chase and traffic is stressful! We have gone out to Less populated areas and done a lot of practice in parking lots, but I really would like to get her out on the road in our neighborhood. I am wondering if it might make sense to do a couple of sessions with a driving instructor just to get her a little more confident than I am able to? She will probably do her drivers Ed class in the late spring or early summer, so this will be before then. Does that make sense? Or is that crazy? Any suggestions are welcome.

It’s not crazy. My sister took my daughter out for most of her first couple real driving sessions, after I took her around some parking lots. She was much more relaxed than I was as her mom. I had the same experience as a teen - my moms boyfriend took me out and it was way less stressful than when my mom took me.

So if you don’t have any other adults that are able to take her, paying someone us a good substitute.

[Anonymous]

Confused. Are one of these classes REQUIRED if a kid has already taken school driver’s ed? If so seems like there is little point in the school driver’s Ed class. In VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did IDS for both. We have been pleased enough with it. I agree with the other poster that really the teaching happens with the parents. I dont' know that they really learn that much in the 30 hours of class time. I think this whole private drivers ed thing is a bit of a scam. It used to be offered in school. I don't know how people of limited means swing it.

It is still offered in school. APS, grade 10 PE has it. Now, whether that is good or sufficient, no idea as that is next year.