Berkeley Driving School

You will probably get a lot of recommendations for Berkeley Driving School; both of my daughters really liked Donald, and Louie was also helpful. By the way, although as an 18-year old your kid isn't required to do the preliminary first step of an on-line course, the abbreviated version for adults can provide useful basic information to prepare them for the written test.

We used driversed.com for the written instruction and it was sufficient for our kids to pass the written test and get their permits.  It is required that they do one lesson with a driving instructor before they can drive with their parents.  After the lesson, the instructor stamps and signs their learning permit, so there is no extra piece of paper to lose.  It is also required to do 6 hours of driving instruction (3 2-hour lessons), although you can certainly do more than that if desired.

You, as the parents, though, will be doing the bulk of the instruction, as you are required to drive with her for 40 daytime hours and 10 nighttime hours before she can take the driving test.

We used Berkeley Driving School for 5 beginning drivers and had zero problems.  I just looked and they still have online scheduling.  At the bottom of the picture, above the Facebook symbol, there is a button that says “Schedule a 2-Hour Driving Lesson”.  That will take you to the online scheduling site.  They have both male and female instructors and you can choose which you want.  We have boys and girls and they all used cross-gender instructors and were fine.  The men they drove with were not creepy and were competent instructors, but you don’t have to use them.  My most recent driver (just got her license in late December) liked Laurie “Dee Dee” Bennett the most of the people she had as instructors.  She provided helpful feedback and had a nice manner.  Just so you are aware, Dee Fong Putthongvilai is a man.

We found it useful to have one lesson at the beginning, one lesson about half way through the 50 hours, and one lesson right before they were ready to take the test.  The instructors do a mock test with you (using the DMV guidelines) and let you know what you need to work on.

We used Berkeley Driving School for on-the-road driver training (We used a different web site for the online material.), mainly because it was convenient.  There was online sign up for lots of time slots, so it was easy to schedule.  We just used whoever was available. My son says the instructors were fine.  They showed up when they were supposed to.  The Berkeley Driving School instructors completed the paperwork both after the first 2-hour lesson, and when my son finished all the required lessons.  My son did learn to drive pretty well, though he spent many more hours driving with me than with the instructor.  I don't know if the instructors were men or women; we didn't care.