iDriveSafely

This company is an absolute joke!

I can not stress that enough. I decided to take it for my own education and to enjoy the 10% savings on auto insurance. There are 8 Units, each taking about an hour to complete. Before starting the course, they do a voice authentication to establish a base point for your identity, for what I can only presume is to prevent other people from taking this course for you. So after FOUR HOURS of reading documents, watching videos, and taking tests, I have to complete a voice authentication and sure enough, "The voice does not match".

Wow. Awesome security there!

I start an online chat session to bring this problem to the company's attention. The person I get, "Claudia", does confirm that there are multiple failed attempts at my verification and offers the less than comforting advice that "Hey, if you fail again, you can redo the course at NO CHARGE". Well golly gee, let me count my lucky stars for that.

So I call the company and am greeted by a less than amicable person that continues to emphasize, "It's ok if you failed one. You got one more", completely missing the point that their system is botched and that it is hopeless. Then in an effort to get me off of the phone, she tells me that he can transfer me over to another department that will change the way I am verified. I agree, due to my overall lack of other options.

The guy that I get transferred to says that he can change my authentication process, but only if I agree to restart the course and lose my 4+ hours of work. No thank you for that. So I decide to continue and and hope that whatever outsourced job-holding Indian fellow that programmed this software didn't screw up too bad. But nope. Within another 30 minutes of doing the program I am met with another voice authentication test that I fail miserably. End of course. You do not pass go. You do not collect $200.

Thanks a million IDriveSafely!

This site was the first suggestion to come up on Google for "online defensive driving" courses. I registered for a $25 class (supposedly the lowest price you are legally obliged to pay for defensive driving in Texas) Based on the portal page, idrivesafely has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and has had 2,000,000 customers since 2003.

I've taken online defensive driving maybe 2 times in my life to get speeding tickets dismissed. I do not remember the previous occasion except for the vague memory that it is (1) time consuming, (2) redundant and insulting to the average person's intelligence, (3) antiquated with 80's footage of crash test dummies and drunk driving videos.

As a side note, I do not understand the point of online defensive driving, because you can keep the window open and multitask on checking your Facebook page, paying your bills online and playing Farmville while the obligatory timer runs-out on each page (by law, there is a minimum time limit each course has to cover). I do understand that the convenience and accessibility of online defensive driving courses makes a bad driver more likely to take one.

The defensive driving course for Texas I took with this site had 8 chapters, each with several subunits. It took approximately 1 hour to finish each chapter. Half the units in each chapter are video based, created with digital animation sequences that feature horrendous crashes that will stick in your memory for a good while, while the other half is based on lengthy, boring, repetitive text. (you can pay $5 to get an audio recording of the text portions). In order to advance to the next chapter you have to score a 70% or higher on 10 questions. Otherwise you are required to repeat it and will be cursing the screen with as much rage as you experienced when you got that damn speeding ticket. Most of the questions are intuitive and pretty easy.

I do have to say that I learned a handful of new things from the 8 hour long course. I prefer a more interactive interface to entertain my attention deficit, but in the end, not bad.

Good that I didn't read all these 1 star reviews BEFORE starting the test, as most likely I would switch to other company. There are 8 sections in the course, and after each the voice verification is required, where you suppose to call the given phone # and enter the 4 digit pin which is printed on the course screen. After that you have to spell 5 digits printed on the course screen and as well spoken by the verification robot. All 8 attempts of the voice recondition were successful, despite I'm not a native speaker, and was sitting in the nosy office space. So, not sure why there were so many recent complains, might be they improved the voice recognition software? Anyway, now I'm waiting for the certificate through mail. As for the lessons they were bit boring - from 30 to 60 minutes each, but it is probably because I had known most of the material as I had 20+ years of experience. From the technical perspective - each lesson unexpectedly stopped 2-4 times while playing video, but I just had to push pause/play button and move slider to the very right position to the point it stopped to continue - so the stoppage didn't affect the progress. Note that after voice recognition you have to answer 8 question quiz, but it was relatively simple, mostly I had problems with specific English driving terms, rather than with knowledge.

Only small point I would like to improve: taking into account that I took online lessons, and passed them successfully, why not to provide me the copy of the Certificate through email right away, allowing me to enter its # into my car insurance profile? Instead I have to wait while I receive it by regular mail, only then I can provide it to all interested parties. Also, there was something like "here is your score." and "share you score though FB", but no score was provided, I tried to get the score through FB link, but it didn't work. Anyway, the lessons were good, I would recommend - the voice recognition system works fine, so don't be scared by 1-star reviews.

1) First problem was signing up for correct course. Website was unclear and the course I registered for was different from the one o paid for.
2) getting in touch with a customer service rep was next to impossible at the beginning of this year. It took a week to resolve the problem. Would leave messages with no call back.
3) Son had frequent issues with varification. Slowed coursework down and lengthened time it took to complete.
4) last 2 units he was unable to access. Had better luck contacting for technical help who first said it was an error in their end and would be corrected by end of day. When problem continued I later called and was told, "no our techs are not going to get to it til Monday." I explained that we had limited time for son to take test. Was told "just call back when completed and ask for an expedited certificate." Ok. Fine.
Website was fixed on Monday. Son completed coursework. I called an hour later to ask for an expedited certificate and explained our family situation and the delay with the site error. Was told " we can't expedite any certificates. They have to be shipped by US regular mail."
This is not what i was told by previous " "supervisor". There was no option to send or expedite certificate even though I had discussed issue with another supervisor just 2 days before - AND what the supervisor told me was apparently documented in their records.
So very disgusted with this company. The only reason why I did not rate it a 1 was because at least someone answered the phones and documented each call I made. But that does not do customers any good if even the "supervisors" are giving wrong information. This situation will delay my son from getting his permit by almost 3 months.
I regret working with this company.

The I Drive Safely course has an identity verification system that is faulty and unreliable. I initially signed up using their voice recognition method. Once the course was started I was prompted to call a number and asked to repeat a phrase. The voice recognition system did not work at all for me and kept me on an endless loop of trying to repeat the phrase. I called the customer service department and was directed to switch to the keyboard pattern recognition system. I did this and successfully completed about 75-80% (five hours) of the course over a few days. However, on Day 5 the system failed to recognize my keystrokes and blocked me from continuing my course. Phone calls to customer service were to no avail. They appear to have no back up system whereby they can verify my identity (i. E. security questions) and told me I would have to start the course over again.
This situation is absolutely inexcusable from a customer service standpoint. I completed the course work that was given to me, passed the quizzes and used their identity recognition program as directed. The failure is in the software that I Drive Safely uses. I did not fail anything. However, I was told that the only way to get credit for the work I have done is to repeat the entire course from the beginning. Of course, no one could reassure me that I would, indeed, be safe from the random failure of their system to recognize me. The risk of this system failing to recognize me again and not giving me credit for my work is too high and I will absolutely not take the course again. I asked IDS for a refund and received it the same day. But those are 5 hours I'll never get back.
This was one of the most discouraging, frustrating, infuriating consumer experiences that I have ever encountered. That is saying a lot since I have lived in New York City for 20 years.

It did take a little bit to finish, but I learned so many things during this. I used to have a daily struggle of always getting really frustrated when I'm on the road lately and it bothered me so much that I didn't even want to drive anymore. Anyway, after taking this course it taught me mainly to stay calm and don't let road rage affect me or my driving. I could not only cause harm to myself, but also whoever is in the car. This is a wonderful program and I will for sure be telling everyone I know to do this.
At first, I was really upset that I got a ticket because I was running late for work so I got ready super fast and ran out the door. I was going 50 in a 45, and a undercover cop was hiding in a u-turn section right behind the sign that said 45mph. I didn't think that was really fair, but the cop was very very rude and it took him 45 minutes to finally get me first ever ticket. Sadly, since I ran out of my house so fast I forgot my wallet with my driver license, and knowing me i also put my insurance card in my wallet as well. I tired showing the cop a picture of my driver license and my insurance on my phone, but he just yelled at me and said he could arrest me for not having it. I was really scared because I am an extremely safe driver and this one mistake of waking up late made my morning very horrible and worst. I just took a minute to pray to God and carried on with my day.
Overall, at first I was dreading to take defensive driving but throughout all of it i was really enjoying the knowledge that was hiding from awhile back when i was in driving school. Thank you so much for allowing everyone around the world to experience this.