Any current or former motorbike or car instructors on here?

[AlanHolt]

Its looking likely i'll be moving back to the UK this year, but I don't want to fall back into my previous life that I decided to run away from. My van courier business has been crippled by brexit red tape, and covid and the cost of self-employment in Spain is making Spanish Motorbike Tours impossible to keep going beyond November.

So my options seem to be to return and renew my HGV licence and go back to driving trucks, or look at training to do something else, and the something else that really appeals is becoming a bike or car driving instructor. A few people have said they 'know a mate of a mate' who said the pay is poor, but given the past couple of years, the last thing i'm bothered about is chasing a huge salary. I want a steady job which i enjoy and which allows me to exist.

As soon as I receive my Spanish residency card, I will drive/ride to the UK and look at my options. This gives me upto 182 days to confirm I either want to be in the UK or I want to return to Spain and see what I can do here to exist.

So what is it like being a car or bike instructor? The training for a bike instructor varies from £700-£2000, and as a car instructor it ranges from £1700 with a school to £4000 doing it independently. What are the pros and cons of both?

Thanks in advance

[daveuprite]

Only one thing I would say about this, Alan. Be very careful when you turn what was the hobby you loved into a business opportunity.

Personally this would not be an issue for me with cars. I don't love them. Only a very few of them are of real interest to me (think Caterham 7 or similar), and I generally regard them simply as a means to get about in the rain with a boot full of stuff.

But motorbikes, that's different. I've spent decades getting a huge amount of pleasure out of riding them, touring on them, racing them, exploring on them, falling off them, making friends via them, breaking the law on them, and just plain owning them. I would hate anything to spoil that enjoyment. And it could be that spending every day teaching others to ride them, many more hours in cone-infested car parks, tolerating idiots and dull adherence to the highway code might ruin that love.

Perhaps you could detach yourself in your new job as a motorcycle instructor, and keep your hobby completely separated? But I'm not sure I could, and I'd hate to wake up on a sunny day off from work and not want to go out on my bike because I'd had enough of riding all week.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Ok Alan,

I know little of driving instruction, but the demographics are that there are fewer young people than pretty much any time since the driving test was introduced.

Fewer of those young people want to drive than ever before...they have all been told at school that cars are really dangerous and global warming is killing the planet, even though we all know that this winter has globally been one of the coldest since god knows when.

My take is that one of the (few) good things that will come out of Brexit is improved conditions for British-based truck drivers. The Eastern European low-cost model no longer applies in the UK, and many of the E European that were working for UK hauliers have gone elsewhere.

As you may have read elsewhere, I was talking to a mate who has now got a lot of international work as a result of Brexit. His drivers earn £150 a day, and have top of the line Swedish trucks. I'm sure that experienced British drivers who are fluent in European languages, know their way around the continent and can handle all the post-Brexit paperwork will be in increasing demand. I appreciate that living in a truck cab (even a Scania or Volvo) for a week or two at a time isn't for everyone, but I know other people who love it.

[OnHellas]

I’m with Dave on the bike training side of things. Low pay, shit weather, dealing with Dongo CBT customers on a daily basis. Probably working for a school on an adhoc basis......not for me.

Car instructor? A better option as there is much more work, but more competition, and it’s dry and warm.
Still got the darling public to deal with.
Many moons ago I started down this route with a school. The instructor broke me fairly quickly with the (far to) tall tails and bullshit.

Truck driving? Been there done that. I started back in the late eighties and served 10 years driving everything from vans to Class 1 stuff.
I’ve done a bit more 2012 to 2016 for a race team, Morocco, Greece, Spain mainly.

Out of the three?

Day work with a small truck, no bendy stuff and no London I maybe able to cope with.
Nights out with no or shit facilities......no thanks.

[AlanHolt]

Thanks for the comments guys. I spent almost 20 years driving trucks and ended up hating it. I think i'd rather stack shelves in Asda than get behind the wheel of a truck again. A mate of mine is a car driving instructor and he makes a steady living, but has to work 6 days a week to do so.

And I appreciate how riding a bike all week could take the edge off it, its all stuff to consider.

[clutchspring]

I can only comment on the car driving instructor bit. My niece decided to train to be a driving instructor infact when she qualified she was the youngest female driving instructor to qualifi.
She least a car with he-man controlled etc & set about making a living at it, turned out to be harder than expected.
In the end she went working for the AA as a driving instructor but by the time she had paid the AA for the car , advertising, & their cut she still didn't make much money , so after about two years she packed it in all to get her.
Like others have said youngsters these days don't seem interested in driving.

Ian.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Years ago, I knew a guy who worked for the British School of Motoring.

IIRC the business model was you broke even on the instructing, but made the profit by selling 'your' car. It was all to do with tax, and seemed like a bit of a fiddle to me at the time.

[Tonibe63]

A mate of mine was a car driving instructor but got fed up of making no money while working unsociable hours often with time wasted in between clients.
Another mate used to ride his bikes everywhere until he got a job as a test rider at a research circuit where he rides bikes to try to break them in search of known faults (for manufacturers). Now he rarely rides for pleasure until he gets a brand new bike to run in for a weekend.
I drive a class 2 truck part time (3 or 4 days a week), back home every night, £150 a day is achievable but I don't want to work that many hours. Since I started in 2006 the truck industry has changed for the better with DVSA working hard to keep cowboy operators off the road and I think the fewer European trucks on the road the better (I purposefully didn't say drivers because it's left hand drive trucks that are a danger to UK road users). Modern trucks are mainly automatic, adaptive cruise control, load space with built-in restraint systems, increased speed limit on single and dual carriageways ........ generally a better environment than 15 years ago. The biggest problem at the minute is getting a medical due to Covid.

[Flipflop]

I know it’s “a mate of mine” story but he is a good friend and taught my wife to ride - although it was over 20 years ago now.

He was a full time instructor for many years, including advanced. The money was just about okay to live on but forget saving or holidays, let alone a mortgage. I asked him about starting his own school and he said that every school he had worked for went out of business - not due to him .
His wife earned good money but once the kids came along he retrained as a plumber.

If you’re handy then construction is not a bad option although you do need to invest in tools. Where I live a lot of the handymen are old now and many of them are not returning after Covid.

I’m sorry to hear your story - good luck

[Elmer J Fudd]

Interesting conundrum, I suppose it is about where you want to live and making work fit that?

Is there no business model that allows you to work in Spain as an employee (similar to having a Ltd Company in UK and paying yourself PAYE)?

I did Architectural contract work in the UK and Ireland, a long while ago now, but it allowed me to claim business expenses and pay the (then) Mrs a wage for doing "Admin". It also gives you legitimate flexibility to do other things under that company umbrella.

In the UK, electrical testing is getting big as companies need certification of installs, that or similar, combined with your tours may be a possibility.

Maybe a local Spanish accountant could help with options?