Chelmsford Auto School

So far, so good. My 16 year old daughter took the classroom portion here and passed the permit test without additional studying or prep. \r \r Next is driving lessons. I will update again after that. I'll be avoiding Paul in any case... more

My son is currently taking driving lessons with Chelmsford Auto and I couldn't be more dissatisfied. They are totally unorganized and unprofessional. Every other road lesson has been cancelled due too their inability to properly plan. They will charge you $40 if you cancel less than 24 hours before a lesson but have no problem dumping you whenever they feel like it. Save yourself time and aggravation and go to another driving school. more

I attended the required classes and did all of my driving hours and observation, and was told on the last driving lesson that the certificate would be mailed out to the RMV and would take 7-8 days to process. Now here I am 1 Month later and still no certificate. During the 1 month I waited, I tried to call the school repeatedly everyday, but there was no answer. Finally I went to there Chelmsford Offices to find that know one was there. Finally, I got through to someone and they told me that I still owed money and that they changed there policy to not sendi out certificates until full payment. (The instructors never told me of this change of policy). This policy change does in the end make sense, but It would be nice to inform any currently enrolled students of this change prior to them waiting an Entire month for there drivers education certificate. Pros: Good Instructors Cons: Uninformative more

My only advice is to AVOID PAUL AT ALL COSTS. He will do all he can to make you feel like an idiot and question your ability to drive safely. As a teen, you feel that the only thing that you can do is grin and bear his comments that are borderline abusive and are irrevelent to driving instruction. He liberally uses the brake when unnessary causing the driver to panic, they feel something is wrong, and the other cars come dangerously close to rear ending you. Paul expects you to be phsychic, so if you don't know where he wants you to go, all hell breaks loose. more

Love most of the instructors here but one word of caution. If they try to give you Paul as an instructor tell them you want someone else! The guy is a total menace. I had two lessons from him and both times I left the car ready to get violent. He did flat out dangerous things like stick his arm in front of my face pointing at houses he'd like to buy. One time he put on the emergency flashers 'to stop anyone from trying to pass us"" and another time he leant over and pressed the horn for at least 10 seconds because he felt another driver made a bad move. I'm 29 and felt perfectly comfortable giving him an earful over that one; if that person was inclined towards road rage which one of us do you think would have been beaten or shot or whatever? If I'd been 16 and in the car with him when he did that I'm not sure I would have been able to argue with him and it would have made me really uncomfortable. Pros: Best price, decent cars, Al, good variety of class times and schedules e.g. once a week or intensive one week class Cons: Paul is useless and Tim (class room instruction) is kind of annoying. more