Swerve Driving School

I gave my test there, and I am really happy with them. My instructor Nikki was great. I will definitely recommend.

John reached out to me about 2 months after we ended lessons just to check in and see if I had met my goal of passing my driving test (I had). It was so thoughtful of him to follow up, and I was pretty impressed that my driving instructor did that. Great teacher, great experience.

WOW, I REALLY WISHED I WOULD HAVE READ THESE REVIEWS PRIOR TO PURCHASING. I showed up twice to the northgate office to take my test during open hours. The sign was on saying «OPEN» but office was closed. Total waste of my time. Then i went online to purchase the online knowledge test and driving test package. You can purchase it but no way to schedule the drive. And the website says, «Once you have registered in license express, click on one of the purchase buttons above, or call 877−779−3873 to book your exam.» So I called the number. It is the corporate office and they can’t schedule anything. So now I’m waiting for someone from the corporate office to call me back.
Bottom line: I should have gone to the DOL, would have saved time. So far with Swerve, I have tried to go to the storefront in person (twice during open hours and the office is closed when I get there). I have tried calling to schedule my test, but the phone rings and rings and there is no voicemail. Then, I tried to schedule it online, but I had to purchase the package first. Fine. But once you purchase it, there is no way to schedule it.
This business is a joke.

Swerve was a disappointment in terms of scheduling and central office support. My daughter took their course 3 years ago and it was super. This time totally different. Scheduling drives was a disaster. We signed up for the summer when there was time from the busy school year schedule. It was not possible to schedule but one drive of the 6 over the summer and not even at our location. After 9 times of checking the website for drives we finally got one. The website kept saying «Keep checking, we are adding drives all the time» but they didn’t. So, one would think it would be important to practice driving skills along with the classroom portion, but that is not possible with their system. Go elsewhere!

I took a series of adult driving lessons with Swerve and while the in-​car instruction was quite good the scheduling aspect of the business leaves a great deal to be desired.
I had gotten my license at 16 so I already knew how to drive but had not behind the wheel of a car in about 15 years so needed a refresher. I was able to my learner’s permit without any trouble so I just needed the in-​car instruction. The instructors showed up right on time and had quite a bit of practical advice. The in-​car instruction is very good and got my confidence back up to feeling comfortable being behind the wheel again. I was able to pass the driving test with a nearly perfect score so no complaints with their instruction.
Where I did have a great deal of issues was with the scheduling. It often took several calls and emails to get a lesson scheduled. This dragged the process out over two months when I was hoping to get things nailed down over a few weekends. Then I received an email that I was scheduled for a driving test that I had never asked for (I went to another driving school for the driving test because I didn’t trust that they would be able to fit me into their schedule).
So great service, if you can get their attention.

I highly recommend one of the driving instructors –Arthur Van Dyke, the best driving teacher in entire universe. He is incredibly knowledgeable, very good in giving directions and teaching you how to drive in order to be safe driver and to avoid possible accidents.
Customer service is nice, driving lessons and tests packages fees are quite reasonable price.

Do NOT book lessons with SWERVE. I am an adult who purchased a Refresher Package (I am afraid of being behind the wheel and thus I don’t drive very often). The one lesson I did manage to get with a man named Hayden was really great, but I have not been able to schedule any of my other lessons that I paid for in advance. This was in June that I paid for these. The online system, as others have commented, is horrible, and so is their customer service. If they call you back at all, it’s like a week later after leaving messages and sending e-​mails (and I’m always very polite in my correspondence). The worst part is, they don’t seem to care. They never apologize and act like it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to ignore customers. I have been dealing with them since the beginning of June and six months later, I am still trying to schedule my second lesson. Let me also add that I work from home so I am available for lessons almost every day at pretty much any time, and yet I still can’t get a lesson. They either don’t call me back or call back much later, and then they ask me when I am available after I’ve already told them in the voicemail or e-​mail the days and times that I can drive with them. Save your money now. I wish I could just get a refund.

Classes and instruction were fine, but the customer service is the pits! I can never reach anyone on the phone and the website is not user friendly. They need to put more people on the phone lines. Not helpful!

After 2 classes at Miller Community Center in a 90 degree classroom with a roaring fan competing with the instructor, my son withdrew from the class.
After requesting a refund, I finally got a response after 1 month.
Horrible customer service that does not include a name in their email responses so one does not know who they are speaking to.
Stay away from SWERVE!!!

As another reviewer mentioned, I wish I would have vetted the school better before we selected it (although I’m not sure that there are many other choices — 911 is run by the same company).
Our teen’s feedback is that the classes and instructors are okay. I think the approach to teaching the material is overly kitschy and overly complicated. We’ll see how her driving turns out.
The administration of the program is the real problem, and it’s a DISASTER. Yes, the on-​line system was horrible and they implemented a new one. The cross-​over has not gone well and the system is still pretty awful (a lot doesn’t work and what does work is hard to figure out). Having been on the other side of that equation, I cut them a bit of slack for the system problems. I even cut them some slack for slow response times as I’m sure they’ve been inundated.
But their response time has been abysmal. It took more than a week before I got my first response, and all it said was to «call them back» even though I had left explicit instructions about what I needed in both voice mail and email. They have never picked up the phone and I have called at ALL times of day, once even about 10 minutes before they close but they were already closed and I couldn’t even leave a message. Oh, and by the way, the number from which they call doesn’t identify as SWERVE and doesn’t look anything like their two public numbers. The real kicker was when the second message I received included the comment, «I’ll call you back on Monday since it sounds like you are having a hard time getting a hold of us.»
Outbound communication clearly leaves much to be desired in addition to their lack of responsiveness. For example, they also asked parents to be at the first classroom session, but failed to make that request until about five hours before class (which was at 2:15 on a workday). Their automated voice mail is three weeks out-​of-​date. Mass emails have been poorly written and unclear.
Throughout all of this, no apology. It’s the worst customer experience I’ve maybe ever had.

The customer service STINKS! I have been trying to schedule drives for my son on the website it doesn’t work. I tried calling to schedule and leave messages that do not get returned, this has gone on for over a week. I have tried to find an administrative number to reach someone to tell that the website is not working for scheduling drives – there is no alternate office number listed. I feel held hostage, my child needs to complete the course and there is no way to schedule.

SWERVE has proven to be extremely difficult to navigate. They have been overwhelmed this summer with the number of kids who have signed up for Driver’s Ed, but have simply not been able to figure out how to respond to the demand. Their online scheduling system is being revamped and while it is under revision there is no online access to rescheduling. One would think that as a result they would staff up their phone lines and customers could simply call in to reschedule, but they did not. I have left numerous messages to try to reschedule, to no avail. If we can’t reschedule the missed class my son can’t take the final driver’s test and can’t take his Washington State DOL test to get his license; we could end up having paid for the whole class with no way to take the test so he can get his license — a bit frustrating after paying them close to $ 600.

Swerve Driving School has «crashed» recently and is nothing like it used to be. Customer service is non-​existent, the online scheduling system is problematic when it works at all, and there is no way to do work-​arounds with them (they are some kind of franchise operation with no central office to help customers). It is important to note that Swerve is not Better Business Bureau accredited and the BBB complaint system rates them a «D»…

Swerve has had excellent instructors who really care about their students and do an excellent job of teaching — it is too bad that the company has let them down by failing to provide any customer support making it impossible to schedule drives and tests.