Swerve Driving School

Very pleased the teen driving course is awesome and instructors were really invested in safety. We will use them again.

My teen really enjoyed the class and as a parent I feel more confident in the skills she will have on the road.

I could never recommend Swerve. There are better schools out there. In the orientation meeting, where parents attend, we were told how our children would be trained to be safe drivers and how low the accident rate was for Swerve graduates. Most of the discussion was about the instructor’s transplant surgery.
My son hit a car in the parking lot while taking his driver’s test! He was allowed to continue, for some reason, and just barely passed. Two weeks later, he totaled my car; luckily no one was hurt and only my car was involved.
This past summer, he totaled another car. This accident could have happened to anyone, and it was not 100% his fault, and again no one was hurt.
However, while I of course don’t blame Swerve for these accidents, I feel there is something lacking in the training they provide these teens.
My daughter is getting ready to sign up for a driving course, and we won’t be going to Swerve. Suggest you also investigate the other options out there. There’s a reason for the very low Unilocal ratings for this company.

This company is the worst ever to do business with. They charge you many hundreds of dollars and give you a limited amount of time for your child to finish all their practice drives which are required by the state in order to get their licsence and if your child doesn’t get all the drives in they make you pay the many hundreds over. Well here is the kicker, you can never schedule drives because they are always full and booked up so they basically rip you off of your time and money. We had several drives scheduled which this company cancelled on us because their driver had issues and since then have had nothing but troiuble trying to schedule more drives. The customer service doesn’t really help you other than to put it on you to check their website every single day for months on end. They have you over a barrell. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to this place.

Wow, what a frustrating experience this has been. We chose Swerve based on the convenience of classes and drives being offered within walking distance of our home in Ballard. The tricky part was actually finding drive slots open in our neighborhood and it usually required repeated phone calls and eventually getting to talk to a customer service rep who could sign my son up for drives not yet listed within their student portal. But when he needed to re-​take the written knowledge test we were told re-​takes are not offered in Ballard and he’d need to go to either Klahanie or Woodinville. The opposite of convenient. And now, in mid-​November, we’ve learned that Swerve will not be scheduling any new driving lessons from their Ballard location for the rest of 2015 which means for my son’s last 2 drives we will be driving him to Capitol Hill. We will be taking our business elsewhere for our next driver’s ed experience.

My son is taking Swerve classes this fall at Eastlake High School. So far it has been next to impossible to schedule drives and we have had to go to Mercer Island, Newport High School, and Woodinville for the ones we’ve been able to schedule. Also, he has to wait several weeks between drives. I have repeatedly emailed Swerve and left phone messages requesting them to make more drives available at Eastlake High School or nearby because I refuse to go to Ballard for a drive lesson. They have ignored my requests and have not even responded to me at all. I’m extremely dissatisfied and will not put another kid in Swerve. If you expect things to go smoothly and get through class and the required drives in a timely manner, do not go to Swerve driving school.

Just… no.
Young drivers are already feeling nervous enough before their first exam, they don’t need to be yelled at by the examiner for things beyond their control. I was rudely admonished for taking a moment to put on my seat belt before demonstrating my brake lights. The reason? It was raining (lightly) outside. I don’t control the weather, and as far as I know it’s against the law to not be wearing a seat belt. Aren’t you supposed to be testing on safety? There also needs to be better communication about how to proceed after the test. I was told many times to take a picture of the URL before my test (it’s a paper at the desk) but not what the URL link was for. Because we had a little miscommunication at the beginning regarding vehicle usage, and the instructor was late, all I got was a quick «you passed» and the instructor took off. No receipt, no paperwork, no license, no proof. I had to drive back to the place to even ask her to verify if I passed or not, and how I could get my permanent license. To which I got a fairly unhelpful reply.
I just have to say, I was made to feel very jumpy and nervous before my test and it really doesn’t make for a good testing experience. Props to the examiner for keeping a pleasant, neutral tone during the test itself, though the terse voice came back the second it was done.
The extra star goes to the woman I spoke to on the phone prior to my exam. While it’s hell getting through to a live person, she was very kind and helpful.

I hate this company for all of the same reasons that every other reviewer before me has listed. I wish Unilocal allowed negative stars. This is ridiculous.

If I could give negative stars I would. This is a perfect example of a business that takes advantage of a public requirement. Since the DMV doesn’t administer driving/​written tests any longer, companies like this are happy to pocket your money and provide shitty service because there are few alternatives. To be an adult and have the testing admin be so rude when talking to you is humiliating. I think she thinks all teens are annoying by now in her job, so she has developed the shittiest jaded attitude. I feel sorry for anybody who has to take classes here.
Update July 27^th: received a very nice, apologetic call from Jessica, who listened to my side of the story and was very kind. I do appreciate the apology, and was relieved to hear that it was NOT company policy to read each student’s score out loud to the entire class. I hope they address the situation by either requiring Linda to be kinder to students, or take her out of the public/​front line.

The class it self… ok; like any other class. However, customer service… honestly super frustrating.
Since week one, we have been trying to schedule drives. We were able to complete 1, and for the second, they required us to go to a different location (Bellevue High School). We showed up 30 mins. early, and stayed 15 mins. passed the drive time, and we saw nobody. We tried calling and emailing the Customer service, but they sent us to voice mail!
It took them 2 weeks to get back to us, and reschedule.
For our drive 3, out son found he had a hockey game scheduled during one of his drives. He notified them 36 hours in advance, and we still got fined… How is it that they make us waste an hour of our time waiting in Bellevue without any headsup without compensation, and when we give them plenty of time, nothing…
Very disappointed.
Finished the class back in april and still trying to book drive 3.

My daughter took the drive test with the Issaquah Swerve two weeks ago. On the day of drive test, my husband took my daughter and her examiner was Linda. First of all, Linda didn’t even ask if my daughter had any questions prior to the drive. Once she got into the car, she was displeased with the seat and asked my daughter to unlock the door after she failed to adjust. She then went to back of the seat and kept pushing the seat. After she failed again, she came into the car and murmured, «I guess I just have to sit like this,» and cranked up the AC to the highest level without asking. The car was clean and seat was fine. Very rude and unprofessional.
After 12 minutes of driving test, my daughter expected to pass because she felt good about it. But no, she didn’t. Linda told her that she didn’t do a 360 degree scan during back in the corner. Linda claimed that the worst was that her lack of visibility during the drive. That was a bull. Visibility has been one thing that we have trained her the most. There was NO way that my daughter would fail because of that issue. Linda claimed that she couldn’t give her a copy of the score sheet because it is too expensive to have a carbon copy. Really?
My husband then talked to Linda because my daughter was very upset. Then Linda brought up that my daughter almost hit a maroon SUV when she was attempting the back in the corner. Linda even demonstrated the whole incident on a white board with magnet toy cars on it. That was why Linda decided to give my daughter a failing score.
Back home, without telling my daughter what Linda claimed. We asked her about the maroon SUV. She said that she saw the SUV the whole time and drew a diagram on paper on where her car and the SUV were. As soon as she was done, my husband went, «No way, that’s not what Linda showed me on the white board.» Apparently Linda’s imaginary maroon SUV was coming on a different street and different direction than the real maroon SUV my daughter 360 degree scanned and avoided. What a liar.
I echoed another Unilocaler Jay A. that Swerve claimed Jay’s daughter almost hit another car during both tests (posted 8÷6÷2014). Same old trick planned on two teenage girls just so they can make another $ 50. That’s despicably low, real low.

I currently have TWO kids in this program & I would really think twice about signing them up again. The classroom instruction/​instructors are great & provide great thorough instruction, however the customer service & scheduling drives is horrible. It took me well over 2 hours to schedule my kids’ drives (once I left a message several times during business hours & coordinated for a call back from the ONE person who responds to phone calls). Once scheduled, I showed up with my two kids for a scheduled 2 hour drive a mere 7 minutes late at the only available location 15 minutes away from my location (as it was the only available time for weeks) and the instructor had already left and marked us as a «no-​show». I have left several messages & several emails & now have to wait until «regular business hours (m-​f 8 – 5) when the ONE scheduler will call me back. Things happen. People are sometimes SEVEN minutes late, it is unreasonably mark my kids a «no show» at seven minutes late. The customer service of this company has to improve to not go out of business!!!

This is the most inefficient school I’ve ever seen. There is no walk in appointment, you have to book every class online. The customer service is always helping another customer. I am always asked to wait for help. I paid for the class but can not get any clue of how to schedule the class.

Overall I have to agree with the previous reviews. The instructors are great, lots of tips and techniques that where very helpful at the test time. Very patient, punctual, a complete gentleman. The customer service is indeed a disaster after they sign you up. Not much knowledge of how to keep a customer business, zero timely answers, a complete lack of information about their own system. I even tried to go to 2 different locations to schedule a road test, always closed. Called and sent emails, that were answered after 2 days. When I went to take the test they had not even programmed it in the system which added even more stress to the whole moment. I failed. I sent 2 emails and spoke to them to program more private classes to correct the first test faults… well if I hadn’t practiced by myself, I would be still waiting for their answer. I took a second test a week after the request email in a different location and passed. I then wrote them another email to disregard the classes request as they were pointless since I already had the license… I received a note of congratulations right away. ha!

Horrible! They are the most expensive in the area, but they have horrible customer service. You have the classroom portion & also have to schedule «drives», which have to be done online. However their website is from the dinosaur ages and never says any drives are available. Then you call customer services and… Leave a voice mail??? I received a call back a week later! They then updated their website and said everything would be fixed that Monday. Monday came and I received another e-​mail stating their system wasn’t up and running yet… And another e-​mail of the same on Tuesday. Really?
My daughters in her last week of her 6 week class and I’ve been dealing with trying to schedule her drives since week one. This is absolutely ridiculous. When customer service finally called me back they apologized and admitted they grew too fast and accepted too many students into their program at one time. Sorry that sounds like your issue and not mine, I paid my tuition in full from day one so you are supposed to provide the service now. RIGHT?
So now my daughter is still having to go to this school to finish up her drives but they only have drives available 1 – 2 months out. So much for getting her drivers ed completed over the summer… This has turned into a 3 month ordeal. I would highly NOT recommend Swerve to anyone looking for drivers education for their teen.

The instructors at Swerve (both in the classroom and behind the wheel) are very good and do a fantastic job. I give two stars, however, due to the complete lack of operations expertise across the company as a whole. I’m not sure who their COO is (if they even have one!), but they don’t provide any customer service in their physical locations. Instead, you have to either log onto their terrible web portal (even the new one is a disaster), or cal their CSRs via phone. If you try to go the phone route, you will have to leave a voice mail and will NEVER get a callback. So if you ever happen to need to reschedule a lesson for any reason, you are out of luck. What they are good at is pestering you repeatedly for billing info as soon as you sign up online. They called right back for my credit card number!
No driving school is perfect. But it is sad how terrible Swerve’s customer service is considering how good their instructors are.

I would give 0 stars if the website let me.
Terrible customer service. Money better spent elsewhere.
They were alright on the phone answering questions right before we actually signed up. After that, had to kiss customer service goodbye! Most of the time no one answers the phone and if you leave a message, they don’t call back — at least not with one message!
I recently called to reschedule a class. What I received was a rude, non responsive «cusotmer service» rep on the other end. Not just that — they do not like rescheduling because they are «all booked up». After much discussion, could not find a moderately convenient time to reschedule. They really give you the run around for that. This is not what you expect — especially for the price you pay. Ultimately, could not reschedule and had to go through a lot of pain to get my child to that class.
My advice if you are reading this — GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.