Charlie Black / 08 November 2024 / Categories: Services

Drive Tech Speed Awareness

Owned by the AA

What a great business to be in. One where the government forces your customers to buy from you.

It does make me question whether courses like this for road safety, a good thing and preferable to points on your license as punishment and increased insurance premiums, should be an opportunity for private companies to make a profit as there is no comeback or any way to hold them to account when they behave poorly. When it’s a punishment mandated by the government, we as consumers have absolutely no say, even when the people we have paid to get us out of trouble let us down. It’s a terrible system. For me any speed awareness course/punishment should be people over profit. Not the other way around.

When you are mandated to take a speed awareness course you have no choice but to book in with one of the companies approved by the police. I happened to choose Drivetech, there were a few to pick from but I couldn’t find any feedback or reviews on the service itself so it was pretty much a stab in the dark.

I won’t go into everything that happened but thought I’d include the letter I sent to Leicestershire Police in complete frustration.

[Dear Sir or Madam,

I am in the process of trying to complete a speed awareness course with one of your chosen providers Drive Tech and I want to share the experience with you.

It is very disconcerting when you are forced legally to complete something like a speed awareness course and pay a large sum to people who leave me with no confidence the course will even actually happen or the trainer will turn up.

It is reasonable to subject the public to an organised punishment for a speeding offence but it is not fair to subject us to dealing with a private company where the phones aren’t answered when they have meetings and you have to wait on hold for extended periods, over 20 minutes, to speak to someone.

I have finally managed to rebook course (for the second time) on 2nd Oct and I am notifying you ahead of time because if I don’t manage to complete it this time it will not be my fault.

I think it would be wise to revisit and revise the list of companies who have secured these valuable contracts.

Yours faithfully ]

I did manage to complete my course in the end but not without a lot of unnecessary aggravation and hassle. I am watching my speed big style now after this.

It says online Drive tech are the leading provider of speed awareness training in the UK. If I have to do another one I’ll be using a different company.

The only acknowledgement I got from the police, a standard “your comments have been noted and sent to Drivetech.” I heard nothing from Drivetech.

Not really sure the point of the acknowledgement. I’d say my feedback was filed in the round filing cabinet under the desk.