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We have long used the phrase “Don’t fall for the lies of the big name Franchise.”

And here we have yet another example of how the big national names haven’t any empathy, connection or as much as give a damn about their customers. regardless of whether you’re a pupil, an instructor or a trainee instructor, you just a number, just a pound sign to them.

The Competition and Markets Authority has taken action against AA Driving School and BSM Driving School.

Both brands failed to show the full lesson price upfront.

Over 80,000 learners booked lessons without seeing the real total. A compulsory fee appeared later in the checkout.

That breaks consumer law.

What they must pay

• £760,000 refunded to learners
• £4.2 million fine
• Total cost close to £5 million

This marks the first time the CMA has used new powers to issue a financial penalty for this type of breach.

Average refund sits around £9 per learner.

Customers do nothing. Refunds go back to the original payment method or arrive by cheque.

What went wrong

Bookings made between April and December 2025 showed incomplete prices.

• New customers saw the real price only at checkout
• Returning customers saw the fee added later in the process

The fee was mandatory. The law requires it to be included from the start.

Why this matters

Hidden fees change decisions.

A low headline price pulls people in. The real price appears after time and effort already spent.

Many continue with the booking.

Government data backs the scale of the problem:

• 46 percent of online businesses use hidden fees
• UK consumers lose up to £3.5 billion each year
• Service fees cause the most harm

Driving lessons sit in a high-cost category. Small hidden charges stack up fast.

CMA position

The rule is simple.

If a fee is required, include it in the first price shown.

No exceptions.

The regulator has made clear it will act where businesses ignore this.

Wider crackdown

This forms part of a wider push on online pricing and reviews.

Recent investigations include:

• Auto Trader
• Feefo
• Just Eat

More cases are active.

Reality check for the industry

Lesson prices already sit around £36 to £40 per hour.

Add hidden fees and the gap between advertised and real cost widens.

Learners notice and the regulators now act.

The ORDIT Badge. Is It More BOREDIT Than Genuine Quality?

If you’re about to spend serious money on instructor training, read this first.

What the Badge Actually Proves.

To get on the Official Register of Driving Instructor Trainers you need a Grade A on your most recent Standards Check.
No A grade, no badge.
In plain English, here’s what that means. Someone performed well enough on one observed lesson, on one particular day, to satisfy an ADI Enforcement Examiner Manager.
That’s it. One lesson. One day. One tick.Not years of consistent results. Not strong learner pass rates.

Professional standards matter. Nobody’s arguing otherwise.
But a single observed lesson as the measure of long term effectiveness as a trainer? Come on man.
Teaching people to drive properly is slow, patient work.
Performing well for an examiner on a Thursday morning is a completely different skill.

What I Actually Saw
Ten years as an instructor. Three years as a DVSA examiner.
That combination shows you things you can’t unsee.
Some of the worst learner outcomes I witnessed came from Grade A instructors. Including ORDIT badge holders.
Underprepared pupils. Unmanaged nerves. Candidates who were test ready on paper and nowhere else.
Some of the strongest results came consistently from solid B grade instructors.

Some of the calmest pupils. Genuinely prepared drivers. High first time passes. Low fault counts.
Not once in a while. Consistently.
Not every ORDIT trainer is poor.
Some are genuinely brilliant.
But plenty are coasting on a credential that stopped reflecting their actual work years ago.
The badge becomes cover. Not evidence.

What the Big Schools Won’t Tell You
Most large national franchises have been quietly using non ORDIT, non A grade trainers for years.
They run internal programmes. They use experienced ADIs, mostly B grade, to bring new instructors through.
They don’t insist on the ORDIT badge because there aren’t enough registered trainers to meet demand.
So they do what actually works. Results based selection. Not badge based selection.
They’ll preach the ORDIT gospel when it suits the marketing.
Then quietly ignore it when it doesn’t.
Standard practice across the big names for well over a decade. Draw your own conclusions.

The Question Nobody Can Answer
DVSA already links instructors to pupils through PRN numbers when tests are conducted. Learner outcomes are technically traceable. But DVSA publishes no comparison between outcomes by instructor grade or ORDIT status. No pass rate data by trainer credential. Nothing.
If that data went public, this debate would be over fast. Until it does, the badge keeps getting promoted as proof of quality with nothing to back it up. That should bother you.

What Actually Matters
Forget the register and ask the questions that tell you something real.
What are their learner pass rates?
How many pupils go to test genuinely ready?
How many pass first time because they were properly taught?
And this one. Do they train their trainee instructors to that same standard?
The measure of a great trainer isn’t how well they perform for an examiner. It’s how well the people they train go on to teach.
Follow that trail. Find out who taught your potential trainer to teach.
That’s where the quality, or the lack of it, actually lies.

Before You Sign Anything
We been training driving instructors across the North East for years. We don’t hide behind badges. We point to results.
Ask us our pass rates. Ask us who we’ve trained and how they’re performing. Ask us anything.
If the answer to any of those questions makes you uncomfortable about a trainer you’re considering, trust that feeling.
The ORDIT badge shows someone passed a Standards Check at Grade A on a given day. Fine. Good even.

But it doesn’t answer the question that actually matters.

Who gets the best results from the people they train?
That’s the standard worth paying for. And it’s the only one that should matter when you’re deciding where to put your money and your future. Not the ability to take a nervous wreck of a pupil and turn them into a safe, confident driver over months of real work in real conditions.

Automatic Driving Lesson Availability Across TS1–TS26

If you are looking for automatic driving lessons in Teesside, we have weekday availability across the full TS postcode range.

DrewMatic is automatic only.
We do not teach manual.
Every instructor is DVSA approved.
Former DVSA Examiners are on the team.

Areas We Currently Cover

We are active in the following postcode areas, in ascending order:

TS1, TS2, TS3, TS4, TS5, TS6, TS7, TS8, TS9, TS10, TS11
TS16, TS17, TS18, TS19, TS20, TS21, TS22, TS23, TS24
TS25 and TS26

That covers Middlesbrough, Stockton, Billingham, Hartlepool and surrounding estates.

If you are in one of those areas, we have instructors working near you.

Lesson Times Available

Current working hours:

Weekdays: 07:00 – 17:00
Weekends: Very limited availability

Most spaces are daytime weekday slots.
Early morning and after-school times fill first.
Weekend lessons are rare and usually booked weeks in advance.
If you want a consistent weekly slot, weekday daytime gives you the best chance.

Why Automatic Only?

You learn faster in an automatic.

No clutch control.
No stalling.
No gear changes to think about.

You focus on:

• Road position
• Observation
• Planning
• Hazard response

That leads to calmer lessons, stronger test performance and quicker passes.

Over 40 percent of UK tests are now taken in automatic vehicles in many areas.
The shift is already happening.

Who Teaches You?

• Male and female instructors
• DVSA approved
• Former DVSA Examiner experience within the team
• Structured weekly lessons only

We do not offer one-off “try it and see” bookings.
We build proper learners.

Mock Test Standard

Our mock tests are run to test standard.

Realistic.
Strict.
Accurate.

That means fewer surprises on test day.

How To Book

If you live in TS1 through TS26 and want automatic lessons between 07:00 and 17:00 weekdays, now is the time to secure your slot.

Visit the CONTACT page.

DrewMatic.
The Automatic Choice across Teesside.

We’ve built a thriving Driving School in the last 11 years. 

We’ve built it on results, on cheek, on comedy and sometimes on straight talking bluntness- so let’s start blunt.

*TRIGGER WARNING- STRONG AND DIRECT LANGUAGE BELOW*

The entire purpose of this post is for the few, not the many.  It’s easy, when you’ve been listening to your family or friends telling you how hard it is to book a test, for you to grab the first available test that comes up.

Let us be perfectly clear…..If you book a driving test without your instructor’s approval, you are not taking it in their car. Not in any DrewMatic car. There are no exceptions, no excuses. You’re welcome to look elsewhere for another instructor, but believe us when we say- there isn’t a single reputable instructor anywhere that hasn’t heard the lines –

“My instructor let me down.” 

“My instructor isn’t available.” 

“My instructor is in hospital.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

We are not being mean. We are being honest. When we say you are not ready, it is because you are not ready, it is completely unfair to put that pressure on your instructor, it’s the same as asking a builder to certify a house extension when the walls are still wet plaster.

You are free to use your own car, or hire one, but when the examiner says, “That’s the end of the test, I’m sorry, but you haven’t passed,” remember who booked it against instructor advice.  Maybe you’ll fluke it that’s great, we’re pleased for you, but probably won’t be accepting any lifts off you in the future, fluking a test isn’t cool, believe us.

Now let’s talk about the problem.

Every time the DVSA drops new test dates, some people literally lose their minds.  is like the Covid toilet roll crisis all over again. Everyone’s in a frenzy, grabbing whatever they can, terrified someone else will get there first. The same panic. The same poor judgment. The same bone headed and stupid outcome….

Panic-buying a test slot makes as much sense as panic-buying 40 packs of Andrex. You end up with something you don’t know how to use properly and a mess to clean up afterwards. Then comes the guilt trip. 

“Please can I take it anyway?” “I’ll be fine.” “It’s only for the experience.” 

No. You can’t. Not in our cars anyway. You are asking your instructor to risk their job so you can have a go.

Here’s the part most people do not understand. 

If you fail, or fail badly, it reflects on your instructor. Too many of those, and the DVSA calls them in for a Standards Check. Fail that 3 times in a row and their career is done. Gone.

That’s why we are firm. We are not here to risk our licence, reputation, and income because you panicked over a test date.

Ask your instructor what a Standards Check Marker is.  Once they explain, you’ll see why every good driving school controls who tests and when. Now let’s deal with the big question.

Are you actually ready?

You might think so. 

But if your instructor still has to:

• Tell you when to speed up or slow down

• Help steer when you drift too close to the kerb

• Use the dual brake because you missed a hazard

• Remind you to check mirrors or blind spot

• Talk you through every manoeuvre

• Read signs out loud for you

• Tell you which lane to be in

• Remind you which exit to take on a roundabout

• Stop you from freezing when traffic tightens

Then no, you are not ready. And when that car door closes at the test centre, your instructor is not in the passenger seat. The examiner sits there. The car feels smaller. Your hands shake. You think you might have even wet yourself… One wrong move and your confidence melts.

The examiner cannot save you. They will not coach you. If you get it very badly wrong, and they feel you’re a danger, they can end the test and step out.  You will be sitting there alone in the quiet, replaying every mistake, wondering why you didn’t listen.

Your instructor is back in the waiting area. Your phone is off. Nobody can help you. The friends who said “just go for the experience” are not there either. They are at home, forgetting how bad their test went. 

People have short memories when it comes to failure. Ask anyone who failed if it was fun. Watch their face. The truth is simple. 

You are the only one in that car. And if you are not ready, you will find out the hard way. Nerves are fine.  Everyone gets them. 

But if you need help to do things before your test then you are not ready. We say no for your sake. Not ours. We have waiting lists longer than our patience. Your slot can easily go to someone else, it’s not about the money! We say no because we want you to pass first time, not scrape through on luck.

A driving test is proof that you can meet the MINIMUM standard to drive alone. 

Not an experiment to see what happens. So think. Are you test ready, or are you panic-buying confidence like the toilet roll morons of 2020?

If you are still convincing yourself that “a little more luck” will get you through, you are about to learn that luck runs out faster than test slots. Listen to your instructor.  They do this every day. They know what ready looks like. We will never apologise for saying no to someone who is not ready.  We will not risk safety, our jobs, or your dignity so you can gamble on hope.

Please wait until you are ready.  We care about you. We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t. 

Then book it. Pass it. Own it.

That is how you do it right.