A Responsible Driver Driving School

"There is no professionalism by the owner. He becomes belligerent and defensive. He doesn't try to problem solve or show any consideration. If you read the negative reviews, his responses are argumentative. He does not apologize or take responsibility. There was a change with the state in the middle of my daughter's session and he was no longer allowed to provide students with pink slips. He told me that he was not going to email 900 parents and tell them of this change. It's fine if there are no problems, but there are always problems."

"Summary: If you have a flexible schedule and the pick-up/drop-off feature is valuable for you, then try it I took 4 x 1.5h driving classes back in Fall 2022 (already had my learner's permit), and passed the driver's test on the first go with no negative marking on the examiner's sheet. I learnt a lot from the instructors, and they prepared me well, not just for the test, but also for general driving aspects. In particular, I appreciated the complementary pick-up/drop-off at my residence, as nearly all the other nearby driving schools did not provide this for my area. I'm an adult, so maybe that helped. My instructors had a more casual "go for it" approach, not a strict "formal" rigorous academic approach. This was a positive for me, as that meant I could do things more of my way and progress through the manuevres faster without having to "academically" master it. But I concede that some people may prefer the second approach. Also, I assume like most driving schools, you will have to arrange your own car for the test. A side-note predicament is that almost every car rental agency will not allow learner's permit drivers, even if the vehicle is rented by a full licence driver. So you would need to find a nearby family/friend. While the website is functional and shows you your timings, booking (at least for me) was done via communication with the school, through Mr. Bryan Kearney. I assume that he's got a lot to handle between managing the school, instructing sessions, and personal life. So it's unlikely he'll be free to pick-up when you call; instead, you'll need to leave a voice message. Remember to include your number in the message for him to call back on. And like any typical driving school, there will be limited timing availabilities. As I was a working adult, the difficulty of finding overlaps in our schedules resulted in the four classes being spread out over 2 months, inclusive of rescheduling from both our sides."

"I enrolled my daughter in Bryan's Drivers Education course. Bryan was helpful and answered all of my questions regarding the classes, permit test and necessary paperwork. My daughter learned a lot in the classroom and after her second driving lesson with Bryan, she was able to apply the classroom material to the road. He helped her become more comfortable behind the wheel. Bryan was flexible and understanding when she had to make-up a lesson due to our schedules. We had a great experience with Bryan Kearny and Responsible Driver."

"If I could give negative stars I would due to lack of communication and professionalism. I have taken the time to write great reviews for many places but always tend to learn my lesson and move on from bad experiences. In this case, I paid a lot of money for this school so I wanted others to have a heads up. My son attends a private school that does not offer Driver's Education. After researching we chose Responsible Driver mostly due to close proximity to our home. It was very costly but I figured my son would be receiving great instruction so it would be worth it. Right from the start it was unorganized and information lacking. I emailed the person of contact, Brian Kearney, with a few general questions. No reply. Tried calling, no call back. Emailed again and his response was very short and dismissive, not to mention uninformative. I learned there really was no curriculum, timeline or syllabus. Not one he was willing to share anyways. There were barely any resources and tests were grammatically a mess. My son told me he could barely understand some of the final exam questions because they didn't make sense. Students were barely kept the full class time. I would drop off my son and 40min later he was calling me to get him from what was supposed to be a 2 hour class. As a driver education teacher myself for the past 20yrs I know the curriculum and what the state requires academically and regarding classroom hours needed to be eligible for behind the wheel. My son had 3 different instructors over the summer. They were nice but there was no cohesion. Videos were shown which is a great supplement to class but it was the main source of instruction week after week. I was basically teaching my son at home what he wasn't learning in this $500 class. Huge waste of money. I figured he would just get through it, hard lesson learned. And he did. After the final exam my son was glad it was over but he then had to complete BTW. He was given a code to sign up for driving slots. When he went to sign up the system was not working. I called and emailed Mr. Kearney and after a week of no response, I called again. He rudely told me my son did not turn in some paperwork from the first week (which we did). I asked him what was missing and he could not tell me. I went back to my son's school and had the office re-fill out the paperwork and physically drove it to the central location in Hinsdale so we could start BTW. A very nice instructor in Hinsdale assured me that he would give the paperwork to Mr. Kearney and the online slots would open immediately after that. Online never opened for my son. I gave it a few days and emailed Mr. Kearney saying I dropped off the paperwork and to please open the online registration. His email back was rude and on the verge of belligerent, staring with "I told you to be patient...." In all my years of teaching I could never even fathom speaking to a parent the way he spoke to me on several occasions. I replied that I would like letter of completion for the classroom and a refund for the BTW portion that my son never even started. He gave me such a hard time and again was angry and rude. He finally agreed to a partial/minimal refund. I agreed because I wanted this to be OVER at this point. I enrolled my son in another BTW program but could not start there without the letter of completion. It took over 2 weeks and when I called to see if he sent the letter and refund he told me it could take up to 6 weeks. We live 6 miles from LaGrange. I asked if I could come get it and he told me to be patient and just wait. Sorry Mr. Kearney, my patience ran out a long time ago with your inorganization, lack of professionalism and bad attitude. You are supposed to be providing a quality service to the community, to young people. Maybe try working on those communication skills a bit. To think you actually run this program is baffling. And thank you to the kind instructors at the Hinsdale location who were nothing but helpful and cordial to me. Lesson learned. Costly does not always equal quality."

"The instructor gave my daughter confidence to drive in different situations as she demonstrated readiness to advance, giving her guidance throughout the drives and constructive feedback. I believe she is now prepared to drive on her own when she gets her license."