A Plus Driving School North

A+ Driving School’s response to Mrs. [redacted]'s complaint: Mrs. [redacted] originally registered [redacted] for our classes starting on July 21, 2014. She signed our terms and agreement at the bottom of the registration, which states she understands and agrees to the...

following: -Upon completing the classroom training, the first behind the wheel lesson must be completed within the next 4 months. -You can only schedule 1 BTW lesson at a time, and the student should practice for at least 1 month between lessons.  (see attached email .pdf of registration) When class began in July 2014, we received a call on the first day of class from Mrs. [redacted] stating [redacted] probably won't respect the classroom instructor because she is a female and not a police officer.  The office staff did call her to discuss this and let her know that the classroom instructor has years of experience, highly recommended by past students, and is a retired Minnesota school teacher.  It is an A+ Driving School practice to send home a Parent Letter on the first and last day of class to inform parents of the steps involved in training a safe and courteous driver.   We also offered an online video on our website that discussed the steps involved in getting a license and the best practices for teaching teens to drive.  There were 30 kids in this particular class, and Mrs. [redacted] is the only one to say she never received anything from us. A+ provides a study guide that students may download to their phone/ipad or print off and bring to class to assist them in note taking.  If a student does not have the ability to do any of those, A+ will provide that student with a study guide when requested. At the end of class, we did not receive any complaints from Mrs. [redacted].  [redacted] had two days to make up and we assumed he would be returning in the following month or so.  [redacted] did not return to finish his classes until June 10th and 18th of 2015.  That is almost 1 year between starting classes and finishing. It is A+’s policy that the first BTW lesson be scheduled within the first 4 months of completing classroom.  This gives the student ample time to get familiar with driving, but not long enough to develop bad habits that cannot be fixed.  A+ also encourages students to space out the lessons as much as possible getting at least 1 month of practice between lessons.  Mrs. [redacted] claims she was never told this information, however when she registered him for BTW on July 11, 2016, she signed and agreed to those recommendations.  Mrs. [redacted] did not follow these requirements and scheduled all 3 lessons within 1 month.  [redacted]'s first BTW lesson, which occurred on July 19, 2016, was over one full year after completing the classroom portion. [redacted]'s second btw lesson, which occurred only two weeks later on August 4, 2016, is our freeway and one-way lesson.  We do not state or guarantee that students will drive into downtown on their lessons for various reasons such as: traffic, distance, student’s ability, downtown events, etc.  Our instructor, a police officer in training, noted that [redacted] did not seem ready for downtown driving and there was heavy traffic from a convention going on in Minneapolis. [redacted] had not had enough practice between the first and second lesson to safely maneuver downtown.  [redacted]'s final btw lesson took place on August 26, 2016 and was 2 hours of practice and 1 hour for the road test.  One of our retired police officers was [redacted]’s instructor for this appointment.  Our instructor stated that [redacted] was so nervous that he was almost hyperventilating as they drove into the testing center.  [redacted] did everything correctly except he failed to stop at a red light.  Our instructor told [redacted] that he just needs more practice time so he won’t be as nervous for his next driving test. After the lesson we dropped [redacted] off and did not hear anything from him or his mother.  The A+ office staff did receive a call from Mrs. [redacted] around 11:30am on Sept. 28, 2016.  She was frustrated that [redacted] had not been able to pass the road test and had failed a total of 3 times.  We advised her to try and get more practice time and not rush [redacted] through the process. (At this point he had completed all 3 BTW lessons and failed the driving test 3 times all within ONLY 2 months.)  We also suggested testing at an open road testing course.  Mrs. [redacted] was convinced that he was failing because he had never driven downtown (even though he only failed his first test because he failed to stop at a red light).  When we asked her if she had driven downtown with him on their own practice time, she stated “[redacted] does not want to drive with his mother.” At this point the office staff suggested that the owner give her a call. The owner did call Mrs. [redacted] in the afternoon of Sept. 28, 2016.  The conversation was positive and professional and included ideas for helping [redacted] pass the road test.   Mrs. [redacted] did request a free additional lesson, but unfortunately there would be a cost involved as it would require paid instructor time.  A+ offered Mrs. [redacted] an additional lesson at a heavily reduced rate.  Mrs. [redacted] then became very confrontational, unprofessional, and demanding.  Mrs. [redacted] then started to use profanity and complain about our entire program and instructors. She was threatening and unwilling to listen.  At this point the owner did have to interject and suggest that maybe we weren’t a good fit for future lessons. At no point in the conversation did any A+ staff raise their voice.  Mrs. [redacted] then swore and hung up. We pride ourselves on customer service and helping our students become safe drivers.  Our students have a high rate of passing road tests when they follow our recommendations. The A+ Driving School staff’s dedication to customer service is what sets our company apart from other schools.  We feel that we should not be held responsible for [redacted]’s test failures when they did not follow our recommendations and tried to rush the behind the wheel process.  It is not unreasonable to expect that a student should space out his/her lessons so they get ample practice time and increase their confidence.  Since we provided a service and completed all 37 hours of classroom and BTW instruction, we are unable to offer a refund.  We are more than willing to offer additional lessons, but there would be a cost incurred to the customer to pay for our instructor’s time.