Pacific Driver Education

There seem to be some communication issues here. Yes, we didn't respond to your messages immediately, but that is because you sent them over the weekend when we were closed. When you explained that you were not available because of family members who had COVID we did, as we would with anyone who was prevented from attending an appointment for health reasons, offer to reschedule your lesson to a later date - no fee of any kind required. You declined this offer and instead asked for a refund which we issued the same day (yesterday, Tuesday December 17th 2024). I am looking at the refund receipt right now. It may take a few days for your bank to display the refund, but the money you say we stole has already been sent back to you. If you do not receive that, please contact your bank and then reach out to us [email protected] So, to be clear: We DID respond to you after we got back from our weekend, We DID offer to accommodate you on a different day once your family was feeling better, We DID refund your money. We did NOT steal your money, We do enjoy humor but did NOT laugh at you, We certainly did NOT run away - we don't really enjoy jogging, and we're still right here, conveniently located in Gresham and Beaverton.

Thanks for choosing Pacific Driver Education, Zen! We appreciate your support in Beaverton.

Vineet, thank you for the glowing review - Heidi is a great instructor and it's good to hear you two worked so well together. Out of curiosity, what would we have to have done differently to rate that fifth star?

Angela - thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts (and for all the work you did to prepare your son to be a knowledgeable and safe driver!). We look forward to seeing you again when your daughter is ready. :-)

Jennifer - thank you for taking the time to share such a thorough review of your experience. As always it's great to hear that our in-car staff were able to help your daughter feel confident and comfortable during her lessons and her test. I also appreciate your comments regarding the issues you had with scheduling and testing. I respect that you've made a decision about meeting your future training and testing needs, so please understand the comments below are mainly aimed at other parents who may find this review. First, yes - our rates are, for some things, a little higher than other private training schools in the market, and we do not have appointments available as late in the day. These are actually related. From the start, one of the goals at PDE was to provide the best possible training and customer service; that requires having the best possible staff. Intentionally, almost all our employees are full time, we do most of our work during “normal” 9-5 hours, and we pay our staff higher than market wages. Traditional driver training employs a lot of folks who do driver training outside the hours of their “real job”, and often that means new drivers do all their learning in the dark evening hours. While that can help with scheduling, we found, through experience, that it was not the best situation for the instructors or the students. We do offer lessons at both our Beaverton and Gresham locations. Lately demand and wait times have been higher for lessons in Beaverton, so I assume you chose to take lessons in Gresham rather than wait longer to start them in Beaverton. If you feel that somehow we forced you into Gresham when you wanted Beaverton, please reach out to me via [email protected] because I would very much want to hear about that. We do also offer lessons later than 3pm (though not much - our latest starting time is 4:15pm for the reasons listed above) but those slots are in demand and do fill up fast/far in advance. Yes - teens in Oregon do have to wait until their 16th birthday to test if they are not in a classroom-based ODOT approved course, and anyone who tests with a private business instead of directly with DMV has to wait until the day after their test to go to DMV to get their license. We do also offer those ODOT approved teen courses, and those are good fit for teens who like an in-person class experience and can accommodate the more structured scheduling requirements. You are correct that a student passing such a course does not need a separate driving test - they will still need to wait until their birthday to go to DMV for their license. Speaking as the parent of a teen driver, I do want to say congratulations on getting one child successfully trained and licensed, and I hope your experience with us, and maybe this additional information, will help you find an equally successful path for your next new driver!