I've had a pretty mixed experience with Official Driving School. Overall, I wasn't very impressed with how things are run. For example, an instructor took a student on highways during a rainstorm, which ended with an accident. On top of that, the school provided zero drive times during the entire Segment 1 class. I had to send two emails and call the office twice just to get any driving sessions scheduled for my kid, which was really frustrating. That said, one instructor really stands out -- Javon Gibbons. She is amazing! She's patient, encouraging, and keeps things calm so kids can actually learn without feeling stressed. My kids felt comfortable with her right away, and it really helped build their confidence. She's also respectful to both students and parents and is willing to work with families to make it the best experience possible. If you do decide to use this driving school, I would definitely recommend asking for Javon. With her, I know my kid is going to learn and he will be safe! read more

The driving instructor Cassandra Chokbengboun is great, understanding, patient, funny and an overall good instructor, but Kimberly Small-White is a horrible, stern instructor who miserably yells at you rather than actually teaching you. If the school cared about customer satisfaction theyre better off firing people like Kimberly and hiring people like Cassandra. read more

Terrible service, my daughter had to have a medical procedure done and I called 10 days in advance to reschedule class. They wanted to charge me $50 . read more

NO DRIVING TIMES AT A DRIVING SCHOOL?!? There are no times available for students to do their drives. Do yourself a favor and save frustration and go to a different school. The screenshot is what the scheduling app has looked like for days. Nothing available. read more

Official Driving School - You can see that there are no available dates to schedule a drive for a class that is running right now. - Driving Schools Near Me - Royal Oak, Michigan

Horrible experience with Lake Orion/Rochester. Halfway through an online class, the teacher walked away and never came back. The driving instructor made my daughter uncomfortable and spent more time asking personal questions than teaching, and they NEVER even showed my daughter how to parallel park. I tried to work this out with the company, and they had no interest. I reported them to the BBB and the state of Michigan for not meeting requirements. read more

Our experience with Official Driving School has been extremely disappointing. The coordination around scheduling behind-the-wheel drives is terrible. For weeks, every session has shown as unavailable, despite checking multiple times per day. My student needs to complete her drives by this Friday to take her road test, and we still can't schedule a single session. I've emailed three times and called twice requesting to speak with a manager. Both times I called, I was told someone from management would return my call within 72 hours. It's now been two weeks, and I have yet to hear from anyone. The complete lack of customer support is unacceptable. This company's management and scheduling system are severely mismanaged. I strongly recommend looking elsewhere for a reliable driving school. read more

This is the WORST driving school in the Michigan area. Repeatedly they gave us charges for things that did not happen as well as countless schedule issues such as, kicking me off of the drive minutes before it happened as well as charging for a reschedule fee, also, they changed the times of my segment 2 classes which had been purposely targeted for a date to be in the same class as people I know, which despite signing up at the same time sent me alone into another class. Finally, they provided me a newly made test for segment 1 which had improper questions, wording, and bad question phrasing, this caused a near failure in my test which for a new test will run you up more money and delay your progress. Do not attend this driving school! read more

This driving school will take your money but not provide enough driving times for the students to complete the course. Additionally, during my child's first drive the instructor ended the class after only 5 minutes and left the two young female students in a parking lot (in an unsafe area) until they could be picked up by their parents. I tried several times to remedy these situations and spoke with several kind people but could not get a manager to return my call. read more

My son tried logging onto his Zoom class for day one, fifteen minutes before it began. After several unsuccessful attempts, I called the customer service number. The agent gave me a new link. After several more attempts, he was finally able to get on the call somewhere between 5-10 minutes after the class began. He was put in a holding status, awaiting for his instructor to let him in. After nearly 30 minutes of this, he logged off. I was told he would have to re-enroll for a different class because Day 1 is required before he could move on. I asked if there was any way he could make it up before the second class began (hoping it was recorded). The agent told me that was not possible and said he could enrolled in a later class. I explained the reason we enrolled him in the current class is because that was the ONLY date that worked. I called back later in the day and spoke with a different agent who gave me another run-around. He said that my son can continue in his current class, and make up day one on a later date. I asked when that would be, but the guy could not give me an answer. So, we spoke to another agent and expressed my concern that there was no guarantee of if/when my son would be able to make up day one. I explained my concern that my son could get behind in class if day one could not be made up asap. She also could not guarantee when this class could be made up and offered me a refund. I filled out the refund form, waited two weeks, and still received no refund. I called and spoke to a manager. She told me that I actually could not receive a refund because the class was reserved over 72 hours prior. I explained that we tried over and over to get my son logged into his class. There was no way to get ahold of the instructor to let him/her know we were trying, there was no help desk, there was no recording of this class. I told her I felt like my son was being penalized over technical issues with our computer. Her final offer was to reschedule my son for a later date. I had to tell her over and over that no other dates worked for my son. She had no compassion on our situation whatsoever. This whole experience was very unprofessional. I spoke with four different people with four different outcomes. No contingencies for issues that are outside of our control. We lost over $400. read more

While we understand the importance of punctuality, our experience with this driver's training class was disappointing and concerning. We have a commute of over 30 minutes, and on the day of the class we were traveling in very poor winter driving conditions, including blowing snow and drifting roads. Additionally, the classroom location had been changed, which further delayed our arrival. Our children arrived approximately 10 minutes late. The instructor had not yet begun teaching; however, we were told that their attendance for the entire remaining two-hour class would not count and that we would be charged $30 per child to make up the class virtually. Our concern is the lack of flexibility during hazardous weather conditions. If virtual instruction is available as a make-up option, it raises the question of why it is not offered proactively when road conditions are unsafe. As a driver's training program for young drivers, safety should be the top priority, and penalizing families for choosing to drive cautiously sends the wrong message. We hope the school will reconsider its policies to better align with safe driving principles and reasonable accommodations during inclement weather. read more

Ms. Tulip was awful to me when I took driver's ed couple years ago. Back then I wasn't comfortable talking about my experience but I am now and I think it is important for people to know. I have autism and generalized anxiety with panic attacks. One of my panic attack triggers in public speaking. Ms. Tulip tried to get me to talk in one of the zoom classes and I messaged her in the chat that I was not comfortable talking. There is not a rule that I have to talk in class. I was then asked to stay after class. During the conversation after class, I explained my diagnoses to Ms. Tulip. She was very dismissive of my fear. She even said that I needed to get over my fear of public speaking so I could talk to cute boys. This was incredibly inappropriate and made me very uncomfortable. read more

Official Driving School - Driving Schools Near Me - Royal Oak, Michigan

Customer service is terrible. My daughter was signed up for an inperson class, and it was changed the night before to online, took several calls to sort it out (no one answered and no one returned messages). Today's class was cancelled and so was yesterday's. Takes way too much time and effort to schedule drive times. Drive appointments are not available. Do not recommend. read more

HORRIBLE! They just want your money, you might as well take it through your school. they already make you pay 500 but an extra 95 for segment 2 and EXTRA for the drivers test???? just GREEDY! I'm telling you take it through the school! read more

Terrible place to learn to drive, they taught my kid nothing, he couldn't even back up or park, he said all they did was drive around but never talked or showed him how to do anything. Complete waste of money...I had to teach him how to do everything including parallel parking, they didn't even explain that to him. Look for a more one on one learning facility if you're going to pay these prices make them count. read more

Great instructor Cheyenne.My driving instructor is truly amazing, and I'm so grateful to have learned from them. They are patient, calm, and always make me feel confident behind the wheel, even when I make mistakes. Instead of getting frustrated, they explain everything clearly and give me tips that actually help me improve. Their encouragement motivates me to keep practicing, and I can see how much progress I've made because of their teaching. They care about safety and want me to succeed, which makes them an excellent instructor. read more

They need to accept way less students so that all students can be accommodated. Racing to reserve drive times is very stressful and in the end, there aren't enough slots for everyone. Go for quality here, not quantity. This is a very serous thing you are teaching. It needs to be done right. When drives are spread out with several weeks between when just learning, it is not ideal. read more

They suck had a problem with the instructor in Canton Michigan now head a problem with my kid walking in the rain to the Novi location to take her test today that was scheduled she was on time the guy opened the door and said he decided to reschedule but he did not inform anybody he did not contact my daughter did not put it in the app or anything said she can wait until 11:15 stand out in the rain for 2 hours so now my daughter had to walk home again in the rain very unprofessional I do not suggest anybody using this driving school I hope they end up going out of business they are very unprofessional the instructors are straight assholes read more

Worst driving school ever! Pick ANYWHERE ELSE. They expect you to be a professional driver RIGHT on your first drive. Very unprofessional instructors as well, bringing religion and personal factors into the reason you drive 'bad'. Says you're crazy for being nervous on your FIRST drive and overall a horrible environment. SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY, TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE. read more

Ill-advised instructors who mispronounce words read off of slides for 2 hours, all while leaving awkward silences in between. Incredibly difficult to schedule in-person driving tests, and the instructors expect you to be prepared for driving after 2 classes. Waste of time & money. read more

I've had a terrible experience with Bessie windham, she was completely unprofessional and rude to the point I cried when I got home, I've seen reviews from other students expressing the same issues with her, she very clearly should not be in this line of work if this is how she deals with children learning to drive. She treats you like you have 30 years of driving experience whether it's your first drive or your last drive and yells at you if you make a mistake. read more

Signed my kid up for drivers training. Paid. They scheduled her for her first 4 out of 6 drives & was told to keep checking the schedule for the last two. The drives were not scheduled by the time I flew out of state to meet my mom's heart recipient. Got back and called to be told we fell out of compliance. Had to pay for her to retake one class. Was told to keep logging in to check for drive times. It has been a week now and nothing. The location we go to is already hard to work with, with the distance because of work, school, & other appointments. Now I'm being told that no drives are available unless I want to drive twice as far. I'm beyond regretful I paid a dime here. This has been beyond stressful. read more

Worst customer service imaginable -- would highly recommend using any other provider. Registered for a 2/3rds virtual Segment 2 class 5 weeks in advance of the actual course and was forced to cancel the registration just a few days after initially registering due to scheduling conflict (and still over a month before the first virtual class would take place.) I was told that I had missed a 72-hour window to cancel (that apparently includes the weekend) by mere hours and dismissed with them stating they're taking the $85 registration fee and would leave it as a credit -- but would also assess a $50 fee to re-register for a different session. After I protested I was given a form to submit a formal refund request. This was clearly ignored and a response never given until after the original class (again -- over a month later) took place, and was given the same "we don't do cancellations after 72-hours" and cited a Student Agreement that wasn't even available on their website and returned a 404 error. This being a 2/3rds virtual Segment 2 class -- and not a Segment 1 in-person course nor a scheduled instructor driving session -- there is no reason for this policy for a cancellation from something over 30 days away. Save yourself the headache and use another service -- the other ones are cheaper (and far better, it turns out) than the scam that is Official Driving School. read more

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!!!! This has been a horrible experience they are not reliable with horrible communication and a ton of errors read more

One star is too much!!! A few instructors are ok but the most irritating part is that the website is terrible and good luck to EVER being able to speak with someone when you called them. They only pick up the phone if you are a new student! I regret having to come here! read more

Plan to spend a lot of time just trying to schedule the drive time. They routinely accept many more students in the online class than they can accommodate with drive time to complete the course. They blame their own inability to manage this on the "independent"drivers they hire. They differ the number of drive times available to the drivers and do not accept responsibility. The drive time reservation system is like buying front row tickets to a concert when the start sale time is secret. No ability for a student to input their own schedule auto select when time becomes available no communication on when drive times will get posted. Cancel all your plans, login 10 times a day and you can be in the part of the class that passes. They have drivers in nearby areas but students cannot access them. If you call and ask them they may help, even though they discourage you calling to ask about drive time. Mismanaged by design. Ask them their pass fail rate? They don't track it (by design), they only track revenue. read more

Last week my son took off work to accommodate official getting us in right away. I only got a call after leaving bad reviews after MONTHS of the runaround. Both nights he missed work and we could not log into the classes. I called both nights and nobody returned my calls AGAIN! Just had a similar experience tonight in Portage tonight. Again. No instructor showed for the last in-person class/test for segment two. ALL of the students/parents have had the same issues. I'm heading to LARA (licensing and regulation), my local representatives, better business bureau and the news. read more

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I've had a terrible experience trying to get drive times scheduled. They don't tell you when drives are posted. They tell you to "check multiple times per day" - as if a busy working parent has time for that! To make matters worse, I had 2 drives time canceled WITHOUT notification. I showed up with my son only for the instructor to say he wasn't on the schedule. When I called customer service they told me that it was canceled because my son had 3 drives completed (out of 6) and other students had less and had priority. But I did not receive any cancelation notice. read more

They will take your money right away, but their class instructors are not great nor are they prepared. One in-car driving instructor was scrolling Instagram on one drive. And good luck scheduling drives - it's like trying to get concert tickets. You have to log in early in the mornings and schedule your drives because I guess they don't have enough drivers, or as I was told, each instructor uploads their schedule "whenever." read more

Rochester location : The guy was so rude! Rolling his eyes when I did my test. Would highly NOT recommend this place! Did my very best with the test & follow all his instructions. But his moody & rude what else should be the test would be?! RUINED! read more

They are very unprofessional and rude. My daughter was intimidated by the road test instructor during the parking test and they refuse to give her the road test which we paid for- I don't care if he failed her for her parking portion it is not about the cost of retaking the test, I still want this "Driving school" to take her through the entire road test considering it was paid for. read more

No availability of driving instructors. Requesting a refund for sessions. Their zoom class is fine, but the lack of instructors and inability to schedule the driving sessions is real problem. I read other reviews, they say the same thing. read more

This is one of the worst companies to deal with. First of all, their sign up system is confusing at best. The instructor was great. It's the admin and program that is so bad. On session two we ended up with Covid so we rescheduled and then called to check that it went through. The person on the phone scheduled us for a different class. My son took the first two days on line and went to take the test in person. They said he didn't bring his documents. We had no list of documents which I called and asked for. I called to reschedule the test portion and they said they have no record of him taking the class. They lost the proof online. So then they offered two choices. He can take the class over again or drive three hours across the state to take the test. The manager was rude and very insensitive. Horrible company. Choose someone else over them! read more

They helped our son get all his class and diving credits lessons done so he could get his license.

My child completed his training at the end of NOVEMBER and a month later still doesn't have his permit because I can't get anyone to call me back. EVER. In order to get anyone to answer dial option 2 and then you will get to a call center who can't help you. Additionally, the teacher was incompetent enough to not mark him present and they FINALLY, after a month, offered to watch the video of the class and verified he was there. THEN they still never called me back to let me know anything and even better... we still don't have the information we need to get the permit. The customer service is extremely disappointing. read more

The segment 1 and 2 classes were fine, but when it came time to do the driver's test...Wow...do NOT let these people test your teens! They didn't really bother to try to thoroughly explain the process for the parking test. They were rude and unprofessional. My teen was in tears and then they didn't even bother to stop and talk to me after. They just walked right past me like I wasn't there. They took personal phone calls while I stood in front of them, waiting for an explanation of what happened. The only response I ever got was, "oh, well, she failed, so.....that's it" My teen didn't want to drive for weeks after that. We got a different company the second time and she was fine. Absolutely AWFUL read more

Signed up to take the classes via Zoom and after two weeks there has not been a single opening to do a driving session. Called multiple times to complain, said 'a manager' would have to work on and they are short staffed......well, then why did they take my money if they can't deliver read more

I'm very frustrated with this driving school. They changed the schedule on us a week before the class was supposed to start. I've already paid. I had to sign up months in advance and they can just change whatever they want and then I have to figure out how to reschedule if they've caused a conflict? They do not answer the phone, return calls or respond to emails. Does anyone work here? My son has been trying to schedule his drives and they keep canceling them on him. There is no instructor contact information. We will not be returning and we will steer all of our friends clear of this place in the future. read more

Schedules do not get released to book drives and customer service is no help. Rep just said they only have to get 3 drives done before time to sit for test and others can happen after sitting for test. so they are in a constant state of being behind on drives. save your money and go else where. read more

Anything but Official Driving School out of Brighton. Some of their driving instructors are awful. They do no instruction just criticize. The instructors contradict each other and the classroom training on things like hand placement etc. They have problems getting instructors so I think they take anyone who has a car that is set up. No consistency no "training." One instructor, Colleen Day, was so awful we had to call and get my son rescheduled in Fowlerville to avoid getting her again. read more

Good only thing is that all the drives they have are during school hours or during classroom meetings.