Approved Driving Instructor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Approved Driving Instructor (or ADI) is a UK term for a trainer of car driving who has been tested and licensed by the Driving Standards Agency. It is a legal requirement that instructors of car driving in the UK must be thus qualified in order to charge for their services.

Free tuition or supervision may however be given by any individual over the age of 21 who has held and continues to hold a full licence in the same class of vehicle as that being used for at least 3 years. The UK has no law requiring the compulsory use of an ADI but research shows that over 95% of prospective drivers use an ADI for at least some of their training.

[edit] Register of Approved Driving Instructors

To be entered on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors one must:

  1. Be at least 21 years of age.
  2. Has held and continues to hold a UK or EU driving licence for 3 out of the previous 6 years prior to having their name entered onto the Register of Approved Driving Instructors.
  3. Be "of good character". Unspent criminal convictions will be considered, and exceeding 5 penalty points on the driving license will preclude entry.
  4. Pass 3 searching examinations. 'Part 1' is the Theory Test which consists of a multiple choice test of 100 questions split into four bands and a Hazard Perception Test. In order to pass the candidate must achieve a pass mark of at least 80% in the multiple choice element and answer at least 80% of the questions correctly in each band therefore while a candidate may achieve over 80% overall they may still fail if they do not answer 85% correctly in any one band.

'Part 2' is a test of the candidates driving ability and lasts for one hour covering many types of roads and conditions, a high level of competence is required and all manoeuvres are tested. 'Part 3' is a test of instructional ability and lasts for one hour which is broken into two phases. In phase one the examiner will role play a pupil of beginner stage and will be expected to be instructed accordingly, for the second phase the examiner will role play a pupil of test standard/a pupil who have failed their test or a full licence holder. In order to pass the candidates must achieve at least a grade 4 in each. Parts 2 and 3 must be passed within two years of the successful part 1 attempt, in addition to this Parts 2 and 3 are limited to three attempts in any two year period.

  1. Display a green badge in the left side of the windscreen of the training vehicle showing their photo, name and confirming their place on the Register.[1]

Instructors are rated according to this Check Test as Grade 1 to Grade 6; where 6 is best, 4 is average, and 1, 2 and 3 are unacceptable.

The DSA is currently undergoing a consultative process in a bid to raise standards both in the training of driving instructors and learner drivers.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Display a red/pink badge as a Trainee Instructor provided they have passed their part 2 and have undergone a minimum amount of training this licence is only valid for six months and is designed to give prospective instructor valuable experiance for their part 3. Once qualified instructors must then be (Check Tested) every four years in order to stay registered. This involves a chief examiner sitting in the back of a normal lesson to ensure the instructor is maintaining their standard of teaching, if the instructor can not provide a student the examiner will do a roleplay. DVLA - Choosing a driver or riding instructor
 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2006)