Swerve Driving School

Edited: I found the BBB rating for this place, and they had an «F», which made me even more angry. I had called and emailed and called and emailed and heard nothing back.
I was actually ready to escalate it further but finally received a call back today by a woman name Carrie, who is the scheduler for the company.
What a relief, she was super patient with me even though I was quite snippy with her to get started. Once we got all calm, she actually got me totally scheduled for all of our drives and made sure I was satisfied before we ended the call.
I changed my rating from one star to three stars — and left it at that because it should not be that hard to get help for such an expensive service. Plus, their website totally sucks.
Original:
I really wish I had found this page before I signed my daughter up for Swerve.
I called today and asked for my money back, but they’ll only offer a partial refund because my daughter attended two courses. I told the woman that they guaranteed in-​car training as part of the course, so if they can’t provide that, it’s fraud and I’ll escalate this as far as needed to get my full refund.
My experience is echoing every other person’s on here. There are no drives to be scheduled unless I want to drive to Woodinville (25 miles away). There was one drive available, and by the time I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it, their website was so slow that I couldn’t even book it. For the amount of money I paid for this, I could have hired a private instructor and been guaranteed drives.
The only drives available are scheduled during school hours (seriously? every kid in my daughters class goes to her high school. I’m not pulling my daughter out of school to drive).
I emailed before classes started because I was worried about the availability of drives. They assured me that they were adding more and not to worry — to go ahead and start my daughter and there would be plenty of drives. Of course they’re going to say that. If they’d said, «Yeah, we have no intention of adding more drives, so suck it up» everyone would withdraw.
That’s obviously not the case. This is the most expensive driving school in the area. For $ 600 a pop, and 10 kids in class, you’d think that $ 6000 would be enough to get an extra couple of instructors in for drives during a reasonable hour. Christina, our instructor, already told us she made $ 30 an hour. Do the math, Swerve, and get it together.
I’m disgusted and frustrated to say the least.

So mad at this company. You cannot schedule drives ever! I check the website constantly and call and leave messages. We could not get even one drive until after the class ended. Currently it will be two months after the end and we will only have secured 4 drives. They know how many kids are in their classes and how many drives they need. Why don’t they hire more instructors.
The class instruction is good. Marsha in Woodinville taught a good class. We have had nice driving instructors. We just can’t get them.
We scheduled this over the summer and gave up August so we could get this completed. It will be dragging three months or more into fall and conflicting with parents’ work schedules, sports and homework. Terribly run business. They also own 911 driving school. You are held hostage and they know it. Good luck finding any leadership. I had to go onto LInkedin to find the President’s name.

The classroom instruction is very good, but it is infuriating trying to schedule the actual driving. On their site, they state the DOL requires that drives be integrated along with your classroom sessions and that students should have at least 3 drives completed by class number 15. My child won’t have her first drive until it has been several weeks AFTER she’s finished ALL of her class instruction, and currently, there are NO AVAILABLE DRIVES to schedule. They keep pointing you to the website (which is one of the worst) and when you do call, they send you to voicemail. BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE!!! When you pay as much as you do for training, you should have excellent customer service. I’m inches from making a complaint to the AG’s office. My son went to SWERVE about a year ago and it was so much better then (scheduling the drives).

I have to say SWERVE Ballard is great. The customer service agent Renee was very helpful on trying to schedule us for another class. I’m still upset and sorry doesn’t quite make me feel 100% better about this since I wasted time and money on gas/​tolls getting all they way to WOODINVILLE!
Swerve Woodinville … not so much. I had a make up class scheduled there since there was nothing available in our area. I drove him 46 miles round trip which was almost 2 hours of driving on a Saturday at 8am. They didn’t have the equiptment they needed for him to watch a video. Really!!! He was asked to stay until the next class which was at 1130am to wait until he could use someone else’s equiptment. Nope– we wasted all morning and not going to spend all afternoon there.
I get that it was a unforseen circumstance. I paid a lot of money for my son to attend this driving school. I paid a toll and gas plus wasted my time going up there. I hope they at least invest our money in some new equiptment.
No compensation? Fail!

Note: I’m not exactly sure if all of our services were based out of the Woodinville office, because my kids took SWERVE classes at HM Jackson HS and had their drives based out of Mill Creek, but my son is taking his test in Woodinville, and my daughter has had make up classes in Woodinville.
I have had two drivers go through the SWERVE program. Honestly, I think the classroom information is well presented, and as inspiring as any driver’s information/​training can be. It’s dry information, but so important to understand. The SWERVE-​isms, while the victim of fun-​poking at our house, are definitely a creative way to help students remember important road/​driving/​vehicle information. I sat in on a couple of my son’s classes, and the instructor seemed to genuinely be invested in the fact that each new driver would be «collision free for life», and attempted to include them all in the discussions. I would love to see DOL and SWERVE work on some flexibility re: students who might benefit from breaks or a different form of learning (watching a DVD), etc. rather than being so focused on the 2 hours in the seats. When we asked about accommodations for learning style differences, SWERVE did respond with concern and care, but essentially told us that their hands were tied by the DOL.
In terms of the instructors for the drives, we had a mixed bag – everything from «that was a legit stop», to an instructor chatting like a magpie, such that my daughter couldn’t concentrate on the skills she was working on, to instructors who were clear, concise, and supportive. I really would like to call out Matt S. as being an amazing instructor regardless of my kids’ very different learning and driving styles. He not only didn’t make them nervous when they drove, but he gave me succinct instructions on how to practice with them. Matt also subbed in a class for my daughter, who reported him to be just as fabulous in the classroom. If this was about him alone, the review would be 5 stars.
My biggest issue with SWERVE is their lack of live customer support. Every.single.time. I called with a question or need, I had to leave a message, even if the call was within business hours. To SWERVE’s credit, they always called back within a couple of hours, but the phone tag was frustrating. I’m glad to see other reviewers mention this, too, so I feel like it’s not just me. Also to SWERVE’s credit, every time I have gotten a live person on the phone, the person has been pleasant and helpful; however, for the amount of money we’re paying, I feel like it shouldn’t be so much work on my end to contact them.