How Many Driving Lessons Will I Actually Need?

The average, and why it is not your average

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Across our own pupils over the last three years, the median is 41 hours with an instructor before a first test. The spread is wide: our quickest was 22 hours, our slowest 78. Neither of those people was a better or worse driver at the end. They just started in different places and had different amounts of practice in between.

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What pushes the number down

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Private practice, more than anything. A pupil who drives two hours a week with a parent or partner between lessons typically needs around a third fewer paid hours than one who only drives with us. Frequency helps too: two one-hour lessons a week beats one two-hour lesson, because the gap between sessions is where the forgetting happens.

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What pushes it up

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Long gaps. Six weeks off over the summer costs most people four or five hours of relearning. Nerves add hours as well, though usually fewer than people expect once the first few lessons are behind them. And if you are learning in a manual having never sat in a car before, expect the first four or five hours to go almost entirely on clutch control.

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How to tell whether you are on track

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Ask your instructor for a straight answer after every lesson, and hold them to it. We write a short note after each one saying what went well and what to work on, and roughly how many hours are left. If a school will not tell you that, or the estimate never moves, that is worth noticing.

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Booking the test

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Do not book the practical until you can drive a full hour with no prompting on anything except the odd junction. Booking early to "have something to aim at" sounds motivating and mostly ends in a failed test and a two-month wait for the next slot.

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