Top Driver Driving School

Negative experience: you guys suck so badly. do NOT come here. I’m being dead serious. Find any other driving school to go to. I think I dealt with most of the staff here and there was only a handful of the staff who weren’t rude, careless, or dismissive. To start, on a Sunday class, one of the teachers at this dumpster fire (who didn’t even tell my kid her name, might I mention) didn’t show up to class at all, and the class needed to be made up on another completely random day. Not to mention, the class waited outside the locked door of the facility in the freezing cold weather waiting for this careless member of their staff to arrive. Nothing was said besides the makeup date. This clown and this school inconvenienced an entire class of people! This same instructor, on the times she showed up, would often show up 10-15 minutes past the start time! This school pays her to show up late to her job and barely teach us! I think through her lessons I LOST knowledge about how to drive. She also was very dismissive for when my son had a question and was very unclear with her directions towards the class. Behind the Wheels in this school have a few decent instructors, but if you don’t end up with one of them you are in for an awful 2 hour car ride. It feels like boot camp just to learn how to back out of a parking spot! Not to mention one of these individual instructors… who I believe was named Mr. Smith, has a comment for everything, and has either a snarky, mean, aggressive, or sharp comment for anything you do or ask behind the wheel. It is awful. This instructor needs to be away from children at all costs! This place is a circus and the staff are the sideshow filled with clowns. It seems as if they only care for your money and not to treat anyone here with respect or the attention that they pay an overpriced fee for. I don’t expect a school of driving to be the Garden of Eden, but this place was another level of suffering. It causes much anxiety for children and almost everyone here has a screw loose. So, by any means, DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILDREN HERE.

Fantastic experience: 10/10 the teacher Mr. Katz was amazing and made the experience so fun

Fantastic experience: My driving instructor and in class teacher was Mr. Sparkowski. He is both an amazing teacher and driving instructor. Highly recommend him as both.

Fantastic experience: Mr. sparkowski is a great instructor. Thanks for every thing top driver!

Fantastic experience: Jerry @ Top Driver Arlington Heights facility was a great instructor. My daughter was in glass room portion of the course with Jerry. She enjoyed his style of teaching clear and accurate with good nature attitude. During the behind the wheel portion of the course with Jerry, she always maintained a cool calm and collected attitude. Jerry always took the time to give us a break down of our daughter’s road time. Jerry is simply a great instructor.

Fantastic experience: I love Drees!!

Fantastic experience: This driving school is very quick and professional. Mr.Drees in particular is a very good teacher and driving instructor. He has a good sense of humor while keeping his professionalism. Would recommend.

Fantastic experience: Mr Drees was such a wonderful instructor! He is patient and thoughtful throughout the process and my daughter was comfortable every behind the wheel! Our experience at Top Driver was great and that’s in large part to the instruction my daughter received! Can’t wait to come back for our other kids!

Fantastic experience: Very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful instructors. While scheduling drives can be a challenge, which it likely is everywhere else, the overall experience was very good!

Negative experience: BE WARNED! BE WARNED! BE WARNED! BE WARNED! BE WARNED! BE WARNED! Top Driver requires customers to pay in full upfront and does not offer refunds. Once payment is made, customers are bound by the company's terms and conditions. We had difficulties securing appointments for in-car driving due to Top Driver's flawed system. As paying customers, we were expected to remember to register for upcoming classes every 2nd Monday of the month. We would stay up until past midnight just to register, but as soon as we logged in at 12:01AM, all the classes were fully booked. We found it hard to believe that all the classes could be booked in just one minute. Despite reaching out to customer service for assistance, we were met with poor attitudes and unhelpful advice to try again next month. We wasted seven months and our hard-earned money, but were unable to complete the course. It was not worth it. Due to the immense stress we experienced, we decided to switch to another driving school. However, we were informed that our son would need to start all over again, costing us an additional $400. We had been trying to schedule state-required drives for months with no luck. Fortunately, the new driving school was more accommodating and worked with us to schedule lessons. We now have a clear idea of when our son will have class. We strongly advise against using Top Driver as they are unreliable and will cause you to waste $500 with added stress. We recommend looking for another driving school instead.

Fantastic experience: I was a student and just recently finished my final drive and I have nothing but good things to say, especially about my instructor Rich. He helped me get techniques down and now I feel much more confident behind the wheel. You can really tell how much experience he has when it comes to teaching people to drive and it is wonderful!

Fantastic experience: Great instructors and lessons!!

Fantastic experience: Top Driver in Arlington Heights has been so supportive of my son. They provided great accommodations. Ralph was terrific!

Negative experience: Stay away. The worst company I've ever dealt with. Impossible to schedule driving appointments. My daughter did not complete her on-line portion of the class. No notifications were send out that she still needs to completed. We found out by accident and had to pay an additional $150 for the classes. When I called and talked to customer service rep, they would not even listen and provide discount for the class. Just horrible customer service. There are other driving schools in the area, make sure you go with some one else.

Negative experience: It is literally a scam. They have no drivers and when availability opens for next month it gets booked in a few minutes. we took a Dimond package and when we could not complete our spots due to unavailability of spots-they extended our time but downgraded us to gold but did not refund any money! In the very first class the driver asked my daughter to learn from my dad and then take their classes ( kind-of then why take classes) Their office is always closed and u have to stand on the road waiting for the teacher to turn up. The teachers are booked back to back . so u loose time with the teacher switching and giving feedback. i wish we had signed up a smaller local company- this one is one big fraud

Negative experience: My recommendation would be to go through another provider. The in class teacher was great. The behind the wheel teachers were great—but there is a drastic shortage of Behind the wheel teachers making in impossible to book drives and complete the program in 9 months. I am behind disappointed for my child. I regret not staying with Joyce’s Driving school. They were great for my older daughter. I decided to go with Top Driver because they have a location near my house.

Negative experience: Please don’t go to this place , no appointments available for in car driving lesson , it’s extremely difficult to get an appointment. My daughter still hasn’t able to finish her in car driving lessons. Please find some other places that are doing 100 times better than this scam place

Negative experience: Been here before. Regular (non behind the wheel) teachings were great. Relatively easy to follow, simple straightforward questions. Only complaint is a few of the instructors are highly aggressive at simple mistakes. Sure, they are potentially risking their lives to teach students, I can speak for most of the students when I say this: We tend to drive worse and make more mistakes because of that increased aggression and hostility.

Fantastic experience: Beth was awesome!!

Negative experience: There are no appointments available for the in car driving. They had to extend our deadline by 3 months because our son won't finish in the 9 month window. We paid in full but cannot complete the course. Not worth it at all.

Negative experience: Don't do it, DO NOT DO BUSSINESS WITH TOP DRIVER ANYWHERE IN USA. It's been a horrible experience, classes are always booked. Go and spend your money with other companies.

Positive experience: I want to thank our regional representative Ralph Bayoneto for assisting us with rescheduling cancelled lessons as a result of instructor exposure to COVID and another illness. He was cordial and attentive to our needs. Although the online scheduling system can be a challenge, Top Driver customer service is responsive and can help with scheduling or extending your deadline to complete the programs, problems that are occurring as a result of the surge in students trying to schedule lessons after the initial COVID surge. Thank you Top Driver and Ralph for doing a good job of making a difficult situation better.

Negative experience: worst driving school ever. The scheduling process is a horror show, the instructor is kind of mean, the workers are no help whats so ever. I definitely don’t recommend coming here.

Positive experience: My son first attended Top Driver in Buffalo Grove, IL back in 2019. His classroom instructor, Tracy, did a good job. My main complaint back then was the difficulty in scheduling the in car driving lessons. They were hard to come by, as there were always more students needing lessons than available. In the end, we were able to get all classes scheduled within the necessary timeframe. In 2021 we decided to register my daughter through Top Driver as well. She took online videos instead of in class due to Covid. This option actually worked out better for us in terms of schedules, but there were a few days when we couldn't login and tried for a while. Finally, we called and was told the system was down. Would have been nice to have a message on the website informing us of this so we wouldn't have to waste time trying to log in. Also, there was no discount from Top Driver even though they don't have to pay for an in class instructor. The cost was the same. We ran into the same issue with scheduling in car lessons. They are released once a month, and it is a bit crazy trying to grab classes right when they are released. This would be my main complaint with this company. The in car driving instructors were all fine. My daughter's favorite one was Humiston, he is good. I did have one serious issue my second time around with Top Driver in regards to receiving Certificate of Completion this year. When your child completes all the in class lessons, driving lessons, and you have submitted in the Grade Verification Form, you are 100% complete. At this time, Top Driver is supposed to submit into the State for a Certificate of Completion. This Certificate is required when you go get your license, so it is crucial. You can't request it on your own, it has be done through Top Driver. My daughter completed everything on October 4. We waited for almost two months for the Certificate of Completion, but it never came. Finally, I emailed Top Driver to inquire where it is. Turns out Top Driver completely forgot and neglected to submit into the state for us. For parents that are unaware of this, they would have showed up and been turned down at the DMV. There is really no excuse for this negligence in failing to submit into the State once a student completes all requirements. Especially since Top Driver saved a lot of money on online students, there was very little they actually had to do for us. Set up an account at the beginning and submit into the State for a Certificate at the end. I would warn parents that you will need to micro manage Top Driver to ensure they submit into the State for your certificate should you decide to go with this company. Can't trust them to do it automatically for you like they should.

Fantastic experience: Great experience for our son. Driving instructors were always on point and gave a lot of feedback on what to focus on and be prepared to do in the next lesson. Mr. Sparkowski was great. He provided exceptional guidance on mastering the basics of turning and stopping to parking and reversing. Time and money we’ll spent.

Fantastic experience: The instructors are very patient and thorough. They also provided excellent guidance in prep of obtaining the permit, license and throughout the instruction process. Highly recommended.

Fantastic experience: Good instructors and good driving

Fantastic experience: My son had a great experience and was prepared for his driver’s test.

Negative experience: Mr smith is a psychopath that needs to be put in an institution. 0/10