Drive Smart Georgia

Fantastic experience: I highly recommend Liz Carter's course! She is an incredibly professional instructor, and the examples she provided were truly impactful. Her guidance helped me address all my questions effectively. Enrolling in her class was a fantastic decision!

Fantastic experience: Liz Carter was a great instructor and amazing information learned.

Fantastic experience: Instructor was clear and intentional with course work.

Fantastic experience: Excelente Información y aprendizaje. Gracias Roberto por el curso impartido

Negative experience: I completed DriveSmart’s Joshua’s Law course online over winter break without any issues, but when I started scheduling my driving lessons in February, I ran into a few problems. My first instructor, Kenneth, was kind and patient, but my second instructor, Bazil, was not. At the time of my second lesson, I was still a very novice driver, having never driven on actual roads outside of neighborhoods, and I told Bazil this. He assured me that he understood, that he wouldn’t yell at me, and that he’d be patient because I was still learning. Halfway through the lesson, while driving on a state highway, I started veering toward the right side where there were cones. I got close to hitting one, and Bazil instinctively yelled at me. Immediately after, he told me I should be looking ahead, not to the side. I responded, “I was,” because I truly was, and he yelled back, “Are you kidding me?!?!” My main issue wasn’t that he yelled in that moment—it was that he had promised he wouldn’t and then did anyway. I don’t think he noticed, but I started tearing up because, like most people, I don’t respond well to being yelled at—especially in the middle of a stressful situation. Driving already gave me a lot of anxiety due to past negative experiences with friends and family. Later in the lesson, while I was waiting to make a right turn, he noticed how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel. He asked how I was feeling, and I said, “Stressed.” He laughed. When he asked again, “Stressed?” and I repeated, “Yeah,” he said, “Let me ask you something. Do you have kids? Do you have a job? No! Stressed??” and laughed even more. As a person, I found his response rude, and as his student, I thought it was unnecessary and unprofessional. Yes, I’m still in high school, but I’m also an overachiever, which can be stressful in itself. More importantly, in that moment, I was clearly saying I was stressed because of driving—not anything else. He also noticed that I mixed up my lefts and rights, and I explained it was because I was stressed. He laughed again and then asked if I had “problems with learning.” I found this deeply offensive and shocking. I do not have a learning disability, and the way he insinuated that I did—annoyed rather than genuinely concerned—was completely wrong. There was another moment where he yelled at me, though I don’t remember the details clearly enough to describe it without risking being inaccurate. Moral of the story: if you see an instructor with a lot of open slots, it’s probably because students are avoiding them. Ask your friends who they drove with and liked, and don’t waste a lesson on a bad instructor like I did.