Brookline Driving School

Negative experience: Had a really bad experience. I was scheduled a lesson at 9am -10am. During my arrival to my pickup location at heath street green line station at 8:55 I proceeded to wait for my instructor at 9. He did not show up and I later waited 30+ minutes to later find out when calling the office he called out with no heads up prior to my lesson. The lady at the front desk had given me such attitude and told me “it’s not my fault, I can’t do nothing about that on my end”. I was later told to reschedule because there was no one else in the area to pick me up to proceed with the remaining time of my lesson. DO NO PICK THIS DRIVING SCHOOL !!!

Negative experience: This place is a mix of good and exceptionally horrible trainers. Some talks a lot, some promotes rude driving, while a few is intolerant to dialogue and communication. I am not sure how the school employs Yuriy. He is always angry about something or the other. Ms. Margarit and her dilapidated car (smells of tar and weed) is a pain to drive and learn. She cannot contemplate feedback to her as a trainer. Dmitry is a bot with a life. Cannot teach but lecture a monologue. Ervin and Christopher are great. Proper teachers to learn from. Would recommend some place else.

Fantastic experience: Excellent driving school! I successfully passed my exam on the first attempt. The instructors provide clear and concise explanations. Despite having 15 years of driving experience, I took two hours of personal lessons. It is important to set aside old driving habits and adapt to the rules specific to the United States. Simply follow the instructors' guidance carefully, and success is guaranteed. I sincerely thank the school staff for answering all my questions and offering assistance, as well as the instructors, Vitaliy and Viktor, for their professional support.

Fantastic experience: Passed my road test first try thanks to this place!! Some notes... If you are brand new to driving, it may be beneficial to book lots of lessons very close together. This is something one of their instructors, Keli Esteves, pointed out to me. When your lessons are spaced out far from each other, it can be hard to remember what you are being taught before you take your road test. She was very helpful and also told me to schedule my road test for 8AM as there is less traffic, making you less likely to fail the test. For your road test, if you schedule it for Saturday, they will schedule it with the RMV for you, which is very helpful. Towards the end I was taking lessons with Viktor Babenko and Vladimir Penek. They were both super helpful, Viktor was very nice and always made sure to let me know which direction to go, how to space my car for certain maneuvers, and made me practice the things you need to know for the road test many times so that I had it memorized. Vladimir was more stern, but for a very good reason: the way I was handling the wheel at first was not efficient for making quick adjustments when turning. He taught me how to properly handle the wheel as well as always making sure I was performing the necessary steps for the maneuvers they have you perform for the road test.

Negative experience: I took 15 hours of lessons with them. Before taking lessons here I’ve never driven ever. I was able to pass the road test on the first try. For that I give them 2 stars. However the teachers were hit or miss. I had different teachers for every lesson and i would only rec like 2 of them. Everyone else was rude, confusing, angry, and inappropriate. A lot of them would speak too quickly in a very thick accent, would speak too quietly/murmur to themselves, or just generally not speak English very well. Not being a great English speaker is fine, but I think to teach people how to drive, one should learn at least basic car/driving-related words in English. I can’t tell you the amount of times I had to tell an instructor that I can’t hear them or understand them. I had one instructor mumble instructions to me in another language the whole lesson and then get mad at **me** for not knowing what they’re saying. He’d repeat himself louder and more pissed off and wave his hands around like that helped at all. They also each had their own rules. One thing taught to me by one instructor was a no-go with another instructor and I’d get yelled at. Zero consistency. Some instructors would also tell me to straight up break the law lol like run red lights, speed through stop signs, or to speed through neighborhood streets. One of the more insane things that happened is I had an instructor have me pull into a Dunkin parking lot, park badly because he wasn’t bothering to teach me how to actually park, then get out of the car and go to Dunkin. He was at dunks for like 20 minutes. 20 minutes of a lesson I PAID FOR. I’ve also had an instructor have me drive back to their building and he disappeared inside for so long, that *another* instructor saw me sitting alone in the car and asked me what I was doing. I said I was waiting for my freaking instructor to come back and they had to go and get him!!! Like what?? All during a lesson I paid $$ for. I’d seriously recommend asking a friend or family member to teach you instead. Beg them if you have to…