With the latest figures for learning to drive being dramatically down – we ask “Is this the end of the road for learning to drive?”

BIG TOM Admin have been busy collating the latest stats for BIG TOM customers:

The numbers of people taking theory and practical driving tests has taken a steep decline for Apr 2018 – Mar 2019 being 5% and 3% (respectively) lower than the year before.  In addition to that for the first time in several years the theory test pass rate is down 1.4% for the year too.  A fact that is causing many in the industry to scratch their heads.  And if all this were not enough to ponder on, there has also been (misleading) speculation as to why the practical test pass rate has fallen nationally to 45.8%  In terms of the pass rates for test centres that BIG TOM uses, the latest yearly statistics range from a high for Boston of 51% down to just 45% for Peterborough.

Owner of BIG TOM, Tom Ingram adds:

Customers should be reassured that the quality of BIG TOM intensive driving courses is not being compromised at all despite these latest national figures.  It would be very sad for the industry if training providers were compromising quality due to the lower numbers of learners learning to drive and I sincerely hope that is not the case.  BIG TOM continues to thrive with record numbers of pupils coming to my driving school and has no need to start cutting corners in order to attract bookings.

The thing that sets us apart from others is that we give our customers the opportunity to experience clocking up serious mileage in a range of driving conditions across different towns and cities.  We have the flexibility to identify where our customers’ training needs are and choose suitable locations to raise their confidence and competence in their driving skills.  We offer driving training on rural roads, motorways, in the dark, at weekends, and our two week (40 hour) intensive driving courses are extremely popular.

But we do not get too comfortable sitting in a state of complacency.  Our Admin work very hard in requesting customer feedback so that we can adapt our service to meet the needs of new learners in the future.  It has always been very important to my business to monitor and respond to different learning styles.  We also recognise the importance of effective working relationships with parents who share our philosophy of professional driving training aligned to the DVSA driving standards.

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