In summary, avoid the instructor Jamil, or just choose another company. I will write the reasons below.
First, he had bad manners. I enrolled into the class cause I needed practice, so I made mistake... Read More
In summary, avoid the instructor Jamil, or just choose another company. I will write the reasons below.
First, he had bad manners. I enrolled into the class cause I needed practice, so I made mistakes such as not pressing the pedals gently, surrendering a lot at the intersections, or missing looking at other cars, etc. Whenever I made mistakes as a student, he always showed negative attitudes and looked down on me. He kept repeating "you will fail" about 10 times in every lesson. He said, "you are supposed to do it by yourself without my help", or "I already told you several times before so I am telling you again". "You already failed it because of this". He acted like an evaluator not an instructor who is supposed to help me. He made me feel guilty with every mistake I made.
He was very sarcastic as well. Before I turned left, I looked at the back mirror without turning around my shoulder. He pointed out this, so I said "oh, yeah". But he replied, "No! you don't say yeah. You have to look back". I said "yeah" again, and he again said, "You do not say yeah. No yeah. You are not listening. You have to take action. The test already failed you for this." Another example. I wasn't good at parking, so I wanted to try it again. He said, "Well, you know everything so do whatever you wanna do since you won't listen to me anyways". He made me feel uncomfortable. He did not give me any single compliment at all for any of the improvements I made, but rather blamed me in every moment whenever he had a chance.
Also, he discouraged me from asking questions. If I asked questions, at least he answered my questions. However, he explained in a way that made me feel like a stupid driver. For example, I was driving at 30 MPH when the limits was 35 MPH, and I was wondering if they will take points off with 30 MPH. So I asked about this. However, he said "I already told you, you will fail unless you drive 32-35MPH. You are a student so you are driving slowly but they will fail you for this". I said "I can drive faster than this. I just wanted to know." Then he said, "No, from the time you asked me this question, you proved yourself that you felt uncomfortable to drive faster." And he started lecturing for 5 minutes about why he didn't want to bring me to a highway, etc. I was tired of this pointless lecturing, but I still listened cause I didn't want to argue with him. After 5 minutes of silent listening, I wanted to move on, so I finally just said one word, "OK." And, he replied "No, you are not listening".
Also, he blamed my poor driving skill on me, and made sure that it had nothing to do with him. he said that "I am good at teaching and I am a good instructor. You need minimum 30+ hours of practices or no matter how good I am, you will fail". It is ok to mention this once, but he kept repeating this lecture in every lesson about 3-5 times a day, and he specifically emphasized that he is a good instructor. I listened to this lecture silently for most of the time, but at one point, I wanted to stop the conversation after listening to this for a long time, so I just said one word, "OK". In reply, he said, "You are not listening", and started lecturing more as if I didn't listen to him. I felt that he wanted to make sure that it is all on me, not on him if I fail the test.
I am not mad at him because he told me that I am not a good driver. I also know that I need more practice too. The reason why I am upset is because of his poor manners. The experience with him was the worst and every lesson was a nightmare. I wanted to cancel the lesson because of the toxicity but I already paid for it, and that was why I attended all the lessons. After all the lessons, I talked to Kathy, the owner of this company, over a phone. She seemed considerate, and I had a feeling that she thought of me and she indeed felt sorry about the bad experience with him. Since the owner was professional, I am not sure how the experience will be with other instructors with Safeway Driving School. However, you better avoid Jamil. Read Less