Intensive driving courses in Edinburgh, manual and automatic

An intensive driving course puts your tuition into one block instead of spreading it over months of weekly lessons. You drive four hours a day, on consecutive days, with the same instructor throughout. The course runs over five days, with extra hours added if you need them.

Other schools call them crash courses, fast pass courses or quick pass courses. They are the same thing, and they are the quickest route to a test – but they are not the easy option. Four hours behind the wheel is a long time when everything is new.

Why an intensive course works

• Nothing goes stale between lessons. On weekly lessons you spend the first twenty minutes getting back to where you finished last time. Over a few months that adds up to hours of relearning you have paid for twice.
• Skills stack. Roundabouts learned on Monday are still fresh when you meet a harder one on Wednesday, so you build on them instead of starting again.
• You finish. Weekly lessons drift. Work, weather, holidays and money all get in the way, and plenty of learners stop two thirds of the way there. A course has an end date.

Are intensive driving courses worth the money?

It is the question we get asked most, and the honest answer is that it depends what you are comparing it against.

Twenty hours of weekly lessons and twenty hours of intensive course are not the same twenty hours. On weekly lessons a chunk of every hour goes on getting back to where you finished last week, and over several months that adds up to hours you have paid for twice. Compressed into consecutive days, almost none of it is lost to relearning.

The other half of the answer is the part nobody puts on a website: the cheapest lesson is not the one with the lowest hourly rate. It is the one you do not have to repeat. An hour with an instructor who spots the fault, explains it once and fixes it is worth three with someone who lets you practise the same mistake. That is the whole argument for paying attention to who is teaching you rather than to the rate.

Where an intensive course is not worth it is when it is bought as a shortcut. Twenty hours from a standing start will not make most people safe, and any school that tells you otherwise is selling you a course rather than a licence.

Is an intensive course right for you?

The honest answer is that it suits some people very well and other people badly, and it is worth working out which you are before you book rather than after.

An intensive course suits you if you learn quickly, you can concentrate for a few hours at a stretch, you have a clear reason to pass soon – a job, a move, a change in circumstances – and you can genuinely give up the days. It also suits people who have driven before and need bringing back up to standard.

It suits you less well if you know you struggle under time pressure, if you are very nervous behind the wheel, or if you cannot free up whole days without stress. None of that means you cannot learn to drive – it means weekly or semi-intensive lessons will get you there more comfortably, and probably for less money.

We would rather tell you that at the start than take a booking that does not work. If you are not sure, say so and we will talk it through.

Which course length?

The course we run is five days – 20 hours, four hours a day – at £1,495, manual or automatic, same price either way.

That is usually right for someone who has already had some lessons and needs bringing up to test standard. If you have never driven, twenty hours on its own is rarely enough, and we would rather say so now: we build a longer plan around the course and quote you for it.

The length is not fixed. We can shorten or extend a course to suit you, depending on how quickly you pick it up and whether you need more time. If you are flying after three days we will tell you, and if you need extra hours we will tell you that too – after the first day, not at the end of the week.

We teach for the Currie and Musselburgh test centres, and we know both sets of routes.

These are starting points, not rules. The DVSA's own figure is that the average learner needs around 45 hours of professional tuition before test standard, so if you have never driven and want a realistic view, expect a course to be part of the picture rather than all of it. We will give you a straight assessment after the first day.

Tell us where you are up to and we will come back with available dates and a firm price, or call 07773 645 645.

What you need before you start

• A provisional licence. You must hold it before your first lesson. Apply on GOV.UK – allow a couple of weeks.
• Your theory test. You need to pass the theory test before you can sit the practical, and the pass is valid for two years. Get this done before the course if you can; it is the single most common reason a course has to be rescheduled.
• A practical test date. You book your own practical test with the DVSA. We will advise you on timing so the date and the course line up, but the booking is yours – see booking your practical test.

Manual or automatic

We run intensive courses in both. A manual licence lets you drive anything; an automatic licence is restricted to automatics, but there is less to think about, which for some people is the difference between passing and not. If you have tried manual lessons before and struggled with the clutch, an automatic course is often the honest answer – read more about learning in an automatic.

Who you would be learning with

iPass is Edinburgh-based and has been teaching here since 2011. Your instructor holds the DVSA's top grade – Grade A, with a score of 51 out of 51 at his last standards check. The DVSA marks instructors out of 51 and Grade A starts at 43, so that is a full marks result. We cover all of Edinburgh plus Musselburgh, Prestonpans and East Lothian, and pick you up from home, work or college.

Find the right course in about a minute – a few questions and we will come back with a length, a quote and dates.