Best driving school for teen (Austin: insurance, credit, schools)

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Where are the best driving teachers in and around the Austin area? Please and thank you.

[woodinvilleguy]

What did you find out? I need to start this process for my daughter and need to decide if I should teach her myself or sign her up for a driving school.

What are your opinions on the route to take? It looks like it cost $20 to get the course materials then we can start. Is there really a discount on the insurance for going through a school? I'm confident in my ability to teach her to drive but it looks like there are a lot of strange rules in Texas now.

[woodinvilleguy]

wow, it is shocking that nobody on the forum has an opinion on this. That must be a first.

[Trainwreck20]

Many years ago, a friend of mine started a driving school with his dad (a former coach at a local area HS that had taught drivers ed via the school system). The 800-lb gorilla was (is?) Austin Driving School, and ADS tried very hard to put them out of business (discount rates at locations that competed directly, etc); however, they never could quite do it, mainly because of the horror stories surrounding some of the incidents involving ADS. The ran the school for many years, but then the dad retired and the son moved with his family, so I am not sure the school even exists.

Anyway, I won't repeat the stories as they are hearsay, but lets just say my children will not be attending ADS or any other 'factory' driving school.

[woodinvilleguy]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Many years ago, a friend of mine started a driving school with his dad (a former coach at a local area HS that had taught drivers ed via the school system). The 800-lb gorilla was (is?) Austin Driving School, and ADS tried very hard to put them out of business (discount rates at locations that competed directly, etc); however, they never could quite do it, mainly because of the horror stories surrounding some of the incidents involving ADS. The ran the school for many years, but then the dad retired and the son moved with his family, so I am not sure the school even exists.

Anyway, I won't repeat the stories as they are hearsay, but lets just say my children will not be attending ADS or any other 'factory' driving school.

wow, I guess I'll end up teaching her myself. I'll alert everyone to stay off the sidewalks before our lessons.. :-)

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by woodinvilleguy

wow, I guess I'll end up teaching her myself. I'll alert everyone to stay off the sidewalks before our lessons.. :-)

I suggest you resist that urge and find a good driving school for her. Yes, they do exist. Do a good internet search and check the reviews.

Most insurance companies offer a discount to new drivers who have satisfactorily completed an accredited driving course. They don't just do that to be nice. They do it because graduates of driving schools are better drivers and have fewer claims.

And another thing... parents with bad driving habits teach their kids the same bad habits... which is abundantly obvious every day driving around Austin.

[Trainwreck20]

The issue wasn't with what they did or did not learn at driving school, it was the quality of the instructors. I believe there were quite a few sexual harassment issues and some were apparently using the job as a way to pick up their drugs, etc.

In any case, reasons to NOT teach your own kids to drive:
- You don't want the possible friction with your child (or they do not want it with you). IT should be obvious fairly quickly if your personalities are compatible everywhere EXCEPT in a car.
- You just go through the motions. The reason that insurance recognizes a driving school more than a parent - many parents don't do the required training, they just sort of hand-wave at it and sign off.

[Mrs.JT]

My son attended Austin Driving School over the summer. I had no problems with it. He did really well, the instrutctors often praised him for his skills, and I'm not quite sure if he acquired his skills from driving with them or if it was my effort. Nevertheless, he learned a lot from both the classroom hours and driving hours, and he often corrected ME about my bad habits. Parents still have to complete a 20 hour driving log with their child, so essentially, it's somewhat of a co-teaching situation between the driving school and parents.

[centralaustinite]

My dad was an insurance agent and on one-thing he was hard core! I had to drive 1000 hours with a parent in the car before driving on my own. He knocked it down to 800 hours for my siblings.

We drove in the day, night-time, rain, all kinds of conditions during this time of supervised driving, as well as negotiating parking garages, street parking, highway driving etc.

My kids are in for the same deal!

[Trainwreck20]

My son attended Austin Driving School over the summer. I had no problems with it.

They do have a lot of good drivers. Just see if you can meet the driver and know who they are and make sure you are comfortable with them.