Courtesy Driving School

There are two sides to every story so we'd like to respond to Soheyla K. First, we take safety very seriously at Courtesy Driving School. After all, we're in the business of safety and have been for 32 years. With a fleet of eight cars on the road at any given time, we want to make sure those cars are properly serviced and safe. We deal primarily with a AAA approved independent shop that understands how important the safe operations of our cars are. We expend approximately $25-30k per year to accomplish this. Every 6,000 miles the brakes and tires are inspected by the shop (outside of the daily checks by instructors) and if the instructor or student point out a problem the vehicle is shut down. If anything needs to be fixed or replaced it is done right away. With that said, you don't know that you're going to have complete brake failure until it happens to you.\r When this particular incident occurred the car was towed immediately to the shop and was thoroughly inspected. We were told that there was nothing wrong with the brakes. But surely there had to be! If complete brake failure is rare then surely brake failure twice is incredibly rare. So we had the car towed to another shop to get a second opinion and they confirmed what our main shop said. Nonetheless, the brakes and master cylinder were replaced by the second shop. We then took the car out of the fleet and this car is now being used as my personal car and has been for months, without students and without incident. \r When Soheyla's son was involved in the accident the protocol is to make sure everyone is okay and safe and then they must call a parent. Soheyla's son called his cousin instead. Regardless we should've called the parent. We did apologize to Soheyla several times. Then after she made several calls into our office, Soheyla came in approximately three weeks later to our school and asked if we would finish her son's driving time with conditions---including that we could not take him out on the freeway. She was told that we have to do freeway driving since that is part of the curriculum. This was unacceptable to her. Her response was that we should close the school and she left. Her son called about forty five minutes later and requested a transfer to another school. We then transferred the finished classroom phase and the partial driving instruction to the new school. The student has long since finished. \r We regret what happened, we have taken steps to make sure it never happens again and we wish Soheyla's son well. more

My son, has been attending Courtesy Driving School on the third driving class he was sitting in the back of the Courtesy Driving car, while another student was driving. Suddenly the student said,?the brakes are not working, and there instructor was not able to take control of the situation because of the brakes being broken.? This caused the student to get in an accident. The instructor told the students that this car?s brakes has broke several other times. They waited for the police to arrive at the incident, and once the police arrived the tow tuck took the students back to the Courtesy driving office. This is where we picked up our son, and this is the usual spot our child is picked up at. My son then told me about the incident that occurred. I had heard not one word from Courtesy driving about my son being in an accident; that being said, these kids are still minors. I called a next day to ask why we were not informed our child was involved in an accident, and the the person who answered the phone responded by apologizing and forgot to call. I also stated what the instructor had told my child that this car?s brakes has broke many times before, and he responded it has ?only"" broken 3 previous times. So 3 times is not enough to make a solution for this problem; but they are able to put my child?s life in risk, and many others. This is just unacceptable. I told him that I do not trust your company?s cars, and I need full refund, and will not return to Courtesy Driving. He was apologized and was very accepting. My son was terrified to go back to Courtesy driving. I told the owner that I am requesting a full refund because I want to take my son to finish his driving school somewhere else. He responded by saying there is a 30 day refund policy. It was Courtesy driving?s fault to give students a car with broken brakes, and he is telling me that I have to wait 30 days now. We had originally paid $395.00 for this course, and he refuse to return money. \r Understands it is not okay to be giving cars with problems to minors who are learning how to drive, and more than likely unable to control the situation. more

When my wife went to the driving school for practical lessons they promised if we take 10 lessons, they will accompany us for the road test at DPS. Upon completion of 10 lessons and paid 450$, these people failed to keep the promise stating that they are busy, can't accompany for road test. We are stranded now that i am working offshore and my wife couldn't go to DPS until i come back and we have to reschedule the appointment. I need to take 2 days leave for making everything correct. This is like cheating on us. more