I have just finished my third lesson with gary; from the first lesson he made me feel at ease and his manner and instructions were clear and direct i think that is what you need to learn and re correct your mistakes I highly reccomend Gary as a driving instructor. Thanks Gary (Top Man) Sam Ellett Read Less

My mistake in selecting City Way School of Driving (Gary), Rochester: What a terrible mistake i did by selecting my driving instructor without proper research (later I saw many reviews of City Way, which were very negative, aligned with my experience). I found City Way instructor (Gary) extremely distressing and very opposite of what a good instructor should be. He only uses negative enforcement all the time and with a degree of intensity that anybody driving with him can feel stressful and annoying. His interest is not in making you relaxed while driving. He scares life out of you by telling your mistakes so forcefully and keep on doing this to the extent that you start feeling nervous and commit some error. Then he dwells on that error by severely questioning it and asking why again and again (‘why’ questioning is quite irrelevant in this context as instructor is expected to improve driving skills). I requested him to accumulate feedback and positively provide it after every 5-10 minutes but not when am driving. I think he is not interested in changing his style which could be extremely damaging to some of his students. He over reacts to errors to say that you will never pass the driving test (extreme level of demotivation and not suitable for an instructor to say that) and that you will do a public accident, which he kept saying that it happens all the time. These scary tactics are clearly counter-productive. All this happened in the first two lessons with me and so in the third lesson, i decided to part-away from him and lost quite a lot of money in the process. I sense that his strategy is to demonstrate how bad you are in first few lessons so that he can extend number of lessons with you. In case, you get extremely annoyed and stop the lessons with him, then also this strategy works as then he can charge you a high rate with low refund given. Its win:win for him but I think we should not let him run amok for running his business in this unethical manner. A warning for other ‘would be students’ of Gary… Read Less

This man was an unprofessional and rude bully. I had one lesson with him and cried after 30 minutes, I asked to be taken home. Bare in mind I had not been in a car in 3 months and he was very impatient and aggressive. He kept shouting at me for minor mistakes which are of course going to happen if you’re a learner. My last instructor wasn’t able to provide lessons at the time i needed so I booked with Gary who was able to accommodate this. My previous instructor and my instructor after Gary also had completely different approaches and made me feel very relaxed and not nervous at all. Gary has stated in another review that it is normal for students to get upset, no it is not! It is normal for students to worry about the driving aspect but not feel afraid and bullied by the instructor to the point that they cry! I was in tears the whole journey home which didn’t look good for his business at all but what does he expect. I spoke to a woman when booking with him who said he was ‘very patient’. Complete utter lies. To make matters worse I was pregnant at the time, which is highly dangerous to be put under those stress levels by an individual who I was paying to have lessons with! My husband as you can imagine was very unimpressed that I came home so upset, and not wanting to get back into a car. Gary also refused to refund me. I would not recommend him to anyone and he should not be in this line of work unless he learns to control his temper. I dread to think what his family have to put up with if he is like this towards people he barely knows and who are paying for a service. Read Less