Top Driver Driving School

Fantastic experience: Our Top Driver experience was one for the books! Instructor Teresa turned it around for us in an awesome way! She helped us get to the finish line and we have a licensed driver in our home! Thank you Teresa for making a difference you are amazing! - The Smith’s

Fantastic experience: Teresa with Top Driver Gurnee is the best! I definitely recommend her as an instructor to everyone I know going through the program!

Positive experience: **PLEASE READ*** I would want to give them lowers score but want to start by saying the classroom class was great and the driver instructors are also very good. HOW EVER let me tell you in order to schedule in car driving appointments with instructors It’s a total PAIN IN THE ***. At first I thought it was just me having an issue but after talking to 5 other parents they all were as frustrated as I was with top driver. I believe they do not have enough instructors. It’s so hard to make those appointments then they canceled one on us without rescheduling themselves so here we are again trying to reschedule an appointment and it took us months to be able to set up the in car Appointment to the point we had to drive an hour away three times just to get the classes done in time and to hopefully not get canceled again and have to struggle to schedule appointment one more time. Needless to say, I could not recommend their services, others might have had good experience but not me. I have two more teenagers and I will definitely not be going there for their drivers Ed.

Fantastic experience: My daughter was registered at Top Driver. She had great instruction in class but exceptional instruction behind the wheel with instructor Teresa Hansen. She is the best instructor behind the wheel. She never made her feel uncomfortable, nervous or scared to drive. She went in for her driving test and passed with no issues Thank you Top Driver and thank you to Teresa.

Fantastic experience: The best driving school there is the teachers are patient with you and help you through every step overall best school ever

Fantastic experience: My son went through the Top Driver program. He really enjoyed it. The instructor was great at challenging him to be a better driver. Thanks T!

Fantastic experience: My Experience at Top driver was the perfect experience/Environment for a new driver. For Years i’ve always wanted to get my license and having that freedom that adults have. The Classroom environment was excellent with every week learning a new Skill/Safety measure for driving on the road. When it came to the driving part of the course my Instructor, Ms Teresa Hansen was the best instructor i could’ve asked for. With her amazing unique learning techniques, i was able to better my way on the road and learn the proper technique for driving. As she would say “I throw you in the deep end with no floaties”. She always talked and guided me through it, teaching me and showing me, which then in the span of minutes i would have it down and more confidence in my way of driving. I would recommend Top Driver to any Parent/Student Wanting to learn how to drive, and eventually get their license.

Negative experience: Won't serve anyone over 20 as they "only do teen programs". If you're an adult and need driver training, forget it. Discriminatory. I've been driving professionally for my entire adult life overseas but can't sit behind a wheel with this bunch of clowns.

Fantastic experience: This driving school is amazing. Staff are great my son has enjoyed every single instructor that has been assigned to him for the driving sessions.

Negative experience: Very complacent instructors! Some are good but too many just want to entertain the kids and not really teach them skills that will keep them safe. Even management tells the instructor to pass the student even if they don’t have the skill set to park, reverse turns, backing, staying centered on the road. As long as the student doesn’t commit an actual dangerous event, then the instructor should pass them. As a former instructor I had a student who had passed her evaluation, but couldn’t drive safely, turn safely, etc. When informing management I was told they couldn’t do anything about it. They actual said it was up to the parents to evaluate what the student could or could not do. I believe the driving school is supposed to help build driving skills so the young driver will be safe out there driving, not just pass them through the school and collect money. I had many parents ask for me as well as students. I had good reviews written about me as well. Some I did not pass and that upset the student as well as the parent, which caused complaints against me. I was honest with the student and parent, but that got me fired. This school was allowed to issue the actual driving test for the state, but that privilege was taken away because Top Driver passed way too many students, way above the levels that the state does. This was told to me by a long term instructor of Top Driver. You are entrusting your child to be taught good driving skills and should expect good results, and not to baby your child. This is the first big responsibility you are allowing your child, but they are still children, who need to learn good skills and take personal responsibility.

Fantastic experience: My siblings and I had Ms. Rodriguez. She really helped me understand the importance of driving safely and cautiously. While she helped me through the beginning stages of driving she was incredibly helpful, caring, and funny. Ms. Rodriguez was a great help and an awesome instructor! :)

Fantastic experience: My name is Estrella Contreras and I had Ms.Rodriguez. She is the Absolute best because she is hilarious, caring, and smart. She teaches me how to do things the right way. If you have. Ms.Rodriguez as your instructor, you won’t regret it! :)

Fantastic experience: All of my lessons with Ms. Rodriguez have been AMAZING. She has a great and patient teaching style. Great sense of humor!!

Negative experience: It's really ridiculous that you pay for this course and then when you want to make an appointment to drive, they don't have space after they make another payment of more than $150 so they can keep the time of your drives on the street. It is ridiculous to pay for something that you have already paid for. I do not recommend this place.

Fantastic experience: Teresa was a great help for my daughter and me. Always answered my text and made it easy. Thanks

Fantastic experience: I cannot believe what a great teacher I got to have. Mrs. Teresa Hansen is a life saver she taught me everything I needed to know and helped with any and all complication. She went above and beyond and I am forever grateful. I hope everybody is as lucky as me to get her! I’m FINALLY getting my license!!!

Fantastic experience: Wow just wow!!!!! As in wowww! Terese was my daughters instructor and we have nothing but incredible things to say about her. She REALLY took the time to be firm, but nice and made my daughter super aware of her surroundings and has such a beautiful way of instilling the core driving foundation. I hope everyone gets a chance to get Terese. Thanks for all you do!!

Fantastic experience: Amazing and friendly instructors. Especially Teresa Hansen; Without a doubt, best instructor. She helped every step of the way to finish the program.

Fantastic experience: Great instructors. Ms Salgado is the best!

Fantastic experience: My son was registered at Top Driver Gurnee. He had great instruction in class but exceptional instruction behind the wheel with instructor Teresa Hansen. Hands down the best instructor behind the wheel. She never made him feel uncomfortable, nervous or scared to drive. He went in for his driving test and passed with flying colors. Thank you Top Driver and big thanks to Teresa H!!!

Negative experience: So frustrating... The good: In class instruction was good, went smoothly. In-vehicle instruction from Jeff Kolar was great. My child really learned a lot from him. The others have been okay. The Bad: Customer service has been pretty lousy. They aren't really interested in helping, just responding with the information you can find on the mediocre student portal or telling you that on the 2nd Wednesday of each month you need to pick your classes at noon or miss the tiny window which gets me to... THE UGLY: As many others have stated, their online booking system for in-vehicle training is absolutely horrendous. Once per month you have about a 1 hour window to schedule a class. Every parent jumps on during their lunch break and the classes are full within minutes. If you're lucky you can catch a reschedule but for two months now I've been unable to schedule a class. When reaching out to Customer Service they just tell you what you already know: the next 3 months of classes are booked, you should have signed up in the tiny fraction of time you had on Wednesday. Overall: It's obvious Top Driver, like many businesses, is struggling to employee enough people to operate their business. They have overbooked clients and are unable to fulfill their obligations to instruct students in a timely manner. Proceed with caution and be ready every 2nd Wednesday at Noon for the Top Driver Royal Rumble to get your kid behind the wheel of a car!

Fantastic experience: Theresa was great and very accommodating. She helped us get my son’s file complete so he could get his drivers license.

Fantastic experience: I switched driving schools to come here and it was the best decision ive made. Our trainer, Theresa,was the best and made the entire process a great experience! I would highly recommend this to everyone and her assigned employee was the best!

Negative experience: Instructores are great. My son finished the classroom lessons. But we couldn’t schedule any driving lesson because they were all booked for the rest of the year. When I called to schedule one that charged me $150 dls because we did not schedule before and we were in dead line. How am I supposed to schedule if they were none available dates.

Negative experience: The instructors are great and my son has had an easy time learning from them. The platform and booking system coupled with their (lack of) customer service is absolutely atrocious. They've oversubscribed the behind-the-wheel lessons making it impossible to actually schedule and complete lessons within the Illinois state-mandated timeframe. You have to schedule lessons 30 days out, and they only release slots once a month. Those are booked within hours - or the website goes down. Records also do not stay consistent within their system. 4 of the 6 hours of behind-the-wheel instruction got converted to observation only. The instruction has been great for the student, which is good because we'll likely have to start over with a new provider since they can't seem to get things together.

Positive experience: For the instructors, I would like to give a 5 plus, they are so helpful, they give great feedback, excellent teachers and they go out of their way to really help in any way they can even if there’s a scheduling issue. Teresa Hansen was amazingly helpful and always doing what she could, provided extra information, made everything very clear and even adjusted her schedule to help us and Reed Castel was very clear And calm on what we should focus on, both were very positive and informative. I can’t say enough good things about the instructors. That experience was wonderful. Customer Service on the other hand, I would give a 1. They had a not my problem type of attitude and they just really didn’t care. They are quick to process your payment and that’s the only thing they have a sense of urgency about. It takes aN extremely long time if you want a test, just forget it. After you put that much time and money on, I would think they would be more concerned about you getting to the goal of the whole program to get a license. They didn’t explain very much at all and they gave conflicting information depending on who you talked too. They really need a revamp of customer service and scheduling.

Fantastic experience: My son completed his drivers training and took the road test through Top Driver. He had a great experience the whole time; his instructor Reed was an excellent teacher and helped make the training fun.

Fantastic experience: I had Maddy as my instructor for three lessons. She was very nice and was very helpful. She gave me specific details on what exactly to do on each lesson. She was the best instructor I had throughout all of my lessons. As long as you have experience going into each lesson, you should be fine. I was nervous at first, but each instructor gave me confidence and helped me achieve each lesson. :)

Fantastic experience: My driving instructor was Mrs.Maddy and she was very kind and communicated with me every step of the way. As long as you loosen up and try not to be nervous you will be perfectly fine. Just remember to always review after you have an Lesson so it stays fresh in your brain.

Fantastic experience: I would like to give great thumbs up to Top Driver instructor Jeff Kolar. He made my daughter feel at ease during her lessons, explained what she had to work on and had a very positive attitude. My daughter passed her driving test today, first try and I thank Jeff for his positive encouragement.

Fantastic experience: Special shoutout to my behind-the-wheel instructor Maddy. She is very patient with me and gives good advice when I don’t know what to do or if I mess up. She’s very nice to talk to and she’s an overall good instructor. Definitely recommend.

Fantastic experience: The online lessons were kind of hard to pay attention to and are also not spaced proportionally to the amount of work given per day. The in person lessons were a lot more helpful and both instructors that I have had have been super nice and easy to talk to. They made me feel comfortable which in the end made me perform better! Maddy specifically has been a really great. She answered all my questions very well and was great compay. (Im an auditory learner and their explanations are really helpful.)

Negative experience: I’m currently taking behind the wheel classes and it was my first time driving with no experience and practice and my instructor was being impatient with me and yelling at me because I wasn’t doing things right. It was making me very nervous and I began to shake. It made me feel very sad, I felt like crying there. I went home and cried because I don’t understand why the instructor was being impatient with me when I obviously never had any experience.

Fantastic experience: Awesome. Teresa is the best

Fantastic experience: Our experience was great thumb up.

Fantastic experience: My son really like his instructor, and the in-car driving lessons were very helpful. Everything was well organized.

Fantastic experience: The instructor made the class and the drives fun.

Positive experience: Classroom sessions and driving instruction seemed thorough, was very happy with the driving instructors and their feedback. VERY difficult to book driving lessons, although the website was user friendly. If your kids play sports I don't recommend this program because drive schedules book up over 30 days in advance within hours of new dates being released. Customer Service was hit or miss. When I needed help scheduling, was thrilled with the service. Had a drive scheduled where instructor was 60 minutes late and the rep was rude and unhelpful.

Fantastic experience: Very good school with easy online scheduling. My son liked the the course and BTW instructors. Made a great decision by choosing this driving school for my teenager.

Fantastic experience: Great instructors and a great learning experience for my child. Thank you.

Negative experience: Find another driving school, don't enroll your aspiring driver to Top Driver. This company will drain your wallet for extra charges because of issues that could have been avoided if they have a good customer service or if their instructors were trained to handle customer issues. We went to church that day and thought that we could be home before the driving instructor showed up. We got home a little late and my son didn't go with the instructor when the instructor showed up. When we got home the instructor was still waiting. I told him that I will get my son ready fast, but this instructor refused to go and decided to cancel the appointment. He said he's already 20 minutes behind schedule; the driving lesson was scheduled for 2 hours. This instructor could have deducted 20 minutes from his 2-hour lesson, instead he decided to cancel it and forced us to pay for the cancelation fee of $40 dollars. I wish this instructor told our son to call us before he made the decision to cancel. This company certainly don't value their customers. I will certainly make sure not to use Top Driver again for my other teen. I gave Top Driver 1-star so I can post this review.

Fantastic experience: We had excellent customer service and I loved the ability to schedule or reschedule drive times on line. That saved a lot of time. Driving instructors were great too.

Fantastic experience: Great driving school. I like all the teachers and have fun doing driving lessons.

Positive experience: I feel that Top Driver did a good job teaching my daughter. She liked her instructor and wanted to do her driving portion with her as well.