Tom Wheeler, Crawley, West Sussex

"Crawley area Strong customer service, great experience. Elite were one of the 3 or 4 driving schools that I contacted April last year but the only one to respond the same day. I won't mention names, but one of the others only managed to call me 6 months later, so it's good I didn't wait for them! Eloise, from the Elite office, told me my instructor would be Lee Haydon and he only had one space left which would Monday the 19th of April, which was only in 4 days’ time! I was pleasantly surprised that not only did Elite come back to me straight away but at the ability to fit me in at such short notice. I was also told that Lee would personally call me and discuss the lesson in further detail. He called me on the 17th, and we spoke for just over 20 minutes in what was a highly informative call and Lee answered all of my questions that I had at the time and for any I thought of later, he said I was welcome to text him. I could tell over the phone during this conversation that he was the right teacher for me. By that I mean his personality and enthusiasm for teaching others to drive instantly made me feel that I wasn't just money and that not only would I learn but I would enjoy my lessons and be able to physically relax around him enough to learn in the first place. After all, you are going to need to be able to trust your instructor if you are learning to drive and it's always better to be taught by someone who you can get along with. During our lessons we would talk about what we were going to do in advance, so I was always aware of what was going to happen throughout. I felt like I was in safe and experienced hands and Lee never tried to make me do more than I was comfortable but would encourage me to re-do things that I needed to improve on if there was time and a safe opportunity to do so. Our early lessons were all about getting control of the car in a quiet residential street. We only integrated gear changes or roads with traffic etc. When I was comfortable and competent in controlling the car. I feel we went over everything I could think of asking and Lee would always explain in a way that wasn't over complicated or misleading. As lessons progressed, we began to share responsibilities inside the car and we began to tackle more advanced scenarios such as roundabouts and dual carriageways, the attitude and lesson plan was the same as before. It was about being comfortable and not forcing too much or dropping all of the responsibility on to me until I was ready. Lee always gave direction instructions with good amount of time so that I wasn't lost or under unfair pressure. We always took time to stop and talk over any issues or mistakes that came up during the lesson and at the end we would evaluate and name what went well and what areas need more work. Lee was always honest with my performance, but it was always constructive. During bad lessons I would tend to over think and allow that to affect my concentration, Lee's structured approach and feedback really helped me to break that pattern and move on and come out the other side feeling that the lesson was still valuable learning experience for me. As we got closer to the test date, I feel working with Lee I was able to clean up my driving and make less repetitive mistakes. I was able to choose what we focused on based on areas I felt needed more attention. We started having mock tests and these were very insightful to cleaning up my driving. Even though I have passed I know I can still improve, as can we all, but Lee varied between fair and more critical during these tests which helped to drive home (pun intended) one of his mantras, which is "don't over think; just drive the car". What he means by this is that I won't know the kind of person the examiner will be or how they assess me, and they won't know me; so just drive with the knowledge, experience and confidence I have gained in the months of lessons. I passed the test first time and it felt less daunting than I feel it might have been if I wasn’t so prepared – but that is another thing that was great about the experience with Lee. He won’t let you go for a test until both parties agree you are ready. It's safe to say that I fully recommend Lee and Elite for anyone wishing to learn to drive. You won't regret it."

26 January 2022