Although Juan Carlos knows how to drive properly, he is both horrible at teaching, and incredibly unpleasant to be around. He spent the majority of the lessons telling me that I had "made a mistake," doing things that were "making me [him] afraid," and yelling at me for doing things wrong that he HAD NOT TOLD ME HOW TO DO before hand. And then instead of simply giving me instructions on how to fix my driving, he would continuously reference how badly I'd done throughout the rest of the lesson, and tack on horror stories about the way people have been killed in car accidents and continue to insult my competence by saying that I was having "mental lapses," and "clearly having a bad day." And I'm not a bad driver, believe me, I've driven with both of my parents and friends, all of whom say I am taking to it well with a need for more practice of course. But that is to say that I am not driving 70mph and swerving all over the place, which maybe would justify the level of aggression he threw my way. And in addition to his verbal abuse and negligence, as he answers at least 4 phone calls a 2 hour lesson and spends excessive amounts of time looking at his disorganized appointment book instead of helping me learn how to drive, he constantly spews homophobic, racist, and classist commentary, making horrifically offensive and insensitive snap judgments about pedestrians and other drivers. A few of my "favorites": "almost all of the produce stores in the mission are fronts for drug cartel," "these drug addict homeless women don't deserve to have kids with them," "the folsom street fair is disgusting, I stay away from gays dragging each other around with dog collars."
In addition to his inability to teach without destroying one's confidence, and his offensive nature, he once cut a lesson 1hr45min short (meaning I drove for 15 minutes instead of 2 hours) because he apparently needed to walk his dog, and instead of dropping me home at 5:45 on a separate occasion as he was supposed to, we ended at 5:50 at his next appointment's house, waited 10 minutes for her as her appointment was at 6, and I was dropped home half an hour later incredibly nauseous from the jerky ride from the beginner--oh sorry not home because he dropped me two blocks away because it was more convenient for him 45 minutes late.
I am genuinely shocked anyone has given five stars. I don't know, maybe he's having personal problems right now that are affecting his work, which may explain his behavior, but does not justify it. I would never recommend him to anyone else.
The only reason I have become a decent driver is because I was able to practice driving with the safety of someone else who could take control if I did something horribly wrong, and the random bits of advice I was able to glean from his spew of rude comments. read more
