Learning to drive is a practical necessary for many of us in the UK, even in city centres with strong public transport links. In a difficult jobs market, with expensive urban and suburban housing, and with relatives in other parts of the country, driving is the only truly practical way for a large portion of UK adults to live their lives.
Unfortunately, learning to drive is also exceedingly expensive, and only getting more expensive. From the cost of lessons to the cost of the tests themselves and far beyond, learning to drive can cost thousands upon thousands. But these costs can be managed – and the following three tips will go some way to helping you manage your own, to deliver maximum value at a minimum spend.
Maximise Practice Hours to Cut Lesson Costs
There’s no sugarcoating the often-prohibitive cost of professional driving lessons, which – for those that take extensive lessons over time to prepare for their tests – can vastly outweigh the value of other learning-related costs. The simple answer to this outsized cost is, naturally, to reduce the number of hours in which you invest.
Functionally, this means supplementing professional lessons with extensive practice. If the average professional lesson costs between £25 and £45 per hour, each successful hour of practice you manage outside of formal lessons could save you exactly that much; at a 1:1 ratio, this could halve your lesson costs.
Secure Temporary Learner Driver Insurance for Private Practice
Practicing outside of formal lessons is a financial necessity if you’re serious about keeping costs down, but does incur its own responsibilities and obligations. On a provisional driving license, you can’t sit behind the steering wheel of a car without a supervisor in the passenger seat – who, of course, must be a licensed driver themselves.
Whether driving a car you bought in anticipation of passing, or borrowing someone else’s car for practice, you need insurance to do so legally on UK roads. Adding yourself to an existing annual policy can be unnecessarily expensive, so you might instead take out a temporary policy of learner insurance for young drivers, which can be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Research the True Cost of Ownership Before Passing
The key to cutting costs is, surprisingly enough, knowing the costs involved to the fullest possible extent. You can’t reduce what you don’t anticipate! While some nervous learners may take months and months of lessons, most who learn and test in a short period of time will find that the many other related costs of vehicle ownership outweigh the cost of lessons altogether.
As a new driver, your post-learning insurance policy will be the biggest sting; as a new and untested driver, you are a risk to insurance companies, and your high premiums are a reflection of this risk.
You can, to some extent, mitigate this high-premium first year by choosing a first car that’s cheap to insure. Many factors like safety features, reliability, fuel economy and cash value impact the insurance cost of a car, so picking something like a small hatchback can dramatically and immediately reduce lifetime ownership costs – saving you thousands from the jump.
