Newton Driving School

Best driving school in MA!!! Staff is super friendly and helpful!!! Flexible schedule and awesome instructors!!!

Great Instructors — Schedule Flexibility — Easy Road Test
I signed up for some lessons with them in June 2015. I made several changes to the schedule and the receptionist politely handled all my requests. She never answered my calls but made sure to get back to me the same day.
I wanted to learn with the same instructor for all lessons and they request was catered to as well. My instructor, Arthur Rose, is awesome — Very patient, encouraging and most importantly kept the lessons fun. I wanted to practice more on certain weak points and get comfortable driving around busier areas and my requests were taken care of. Focus was not to make me pass the test but to make me a good driver. Though I did not give my road test with this school (no slots available), I have practiced at their location several times and the test seemed very easy. Make sure to book the test well in advance as their slots get full very early.

The bottom line is that I wanted my teen to learn to drive and to drive safely, and Newton Driving School did a superb job teaching.
I ended up spending some time with four driving instructors, and they were all very professional and taught my son the rules of the road and how to drive safely. (Vitaly was great) All the instructors were patient with my teen driver, knowledgeable about the rules of the road and professional. They arrived at driving appointments promptly and took their job seriously.
As one reviewer pointed out, English is a second language to many of the employees of this company. Communicating with the office can be a challenge, but they always get back to a voicemail or email within 24hours. Regardless, they offer a great program and I recommend Newton Driving School.

My overall experience is positive.
Unlike some old reviews, I didn’t have any issue scheduling and rescheduling my driving lesson and Saturday road test appointment (late summer and early fall).
I took two one-​hour lesson with two different instructors. One of the lesson is a Saturday road test warmup, and the instructor Arthur is great and really get me get ready to do that parallel park.

It’s amazing to me that reviews for Newton Driving School are so polarized. At the end of the day, the Road Test pass rate is exceptionally high (I believe 85%-90% on first try), classes are easy to schedule, and the instructors are committed to the kid’s success. This place is lights out. So I would caution reading too much into the negative reviews. My son’s experience was great, he built a ton of confidence, and uses what he learned when he drives. Yes, he has his driver’s license. Got it on the first try. So I totally disagree with Johanna G’s review, it was SO easy to schedule appointments, my son actually did it himself. There is an online system for appointments. I also disagree with Sara S’ and Bruce W’s review, since my son’s instructor was always on time generally (maybe 5 – 10 minutes late). There was a never a payment issue.

My other children have taken the driving lesson package with other schools and so I can say with confidence that Newton Driving School is one of the better run in our area. It may not be perfect but they do a really thorough job of preparing kids for the road and that is what we want as parents, isn’t it? The instructors are patient and clear and Arthur in particular is a stand out and very helpful in making the kids think about what they are doing and learning. The scheduling of behind the wheel sessions was easy to do and easy to find availability. Even if the phone wasn’t answered, I always received a call back within 24 hours. All in all, a well run business!

Terrible experience. This is more of a family place than a professional one. I might not say they are racists, but at least, everyone ask you «where are you from??» That is because the majority who go there are from the same region (probably Russia). The teacher (Murad), arrived 10 min late for a one hour class! He asked me to drive and he had a lady in the back seat (probably his wife). We had to drive in traffic in very bad streets to drop her somewhere (all is counted from my time!!). Then he took me to the place where the road tests are held and showed me some signals and told me theoretical stuff. He asked me to parallel park, when I could not, he said there is no time to teach you, there is only 20 min left and this is not enough to drive back to the school! He literally wasted my 1 hour lesson in dropping off his wife and going back and forth to the school! He was RACIST, saying rude remarks about where I come from and that «You people kill Russian tourists!!» WTF! He is also a sexist, he kept telling me that women can not drive! I do not know how he is still keeping his job! Total waste of time and money.

I agree with the other reviews. They are impossible to reach on the phone, they are very slow with responding to email questions. They don’t make it easy to find drivers for the kids to observe .I went in person to ask a question because they were so impossible to reach, and they stood around speaking Russian ignoring me. They are one of rudest businesses I have encountered. They need to hire someone not in the family to teach them all customer service. They deserve to be out of business. Go to Needham driving school instead, my other daughter went there and it was much better

The teacher himself was very nice and good at teaching the material, but the manager of the school was extremely rude. She yelled angrily at students and did not treat them like people who had paid lots of money to be there.

I had a great experience with the school. This school is great. They have a tough job scheduling and rescheduling the students from the area, as kids are so busy and need to reschedule often. They work hard to accommodate everyone, even with the difficult winters. NDS also has to work within the rules of the DMV, which isn’t easy either, making it convenient to take the driving exam in Newton. If you are kind and patient with them, you will see that they are superior to the other schools in the area.

Newton Driving School is a great driving school, with great price rates and knowledgeable instructors who know what they are doing and are with you every step of the way. If you want to drive with confidence, learn how to drive than you should go to Newton Driving School.

Find another place than Newton Driving School to have your children or yourself learn to drive or take a road test! I found NDS difficult to work with at every step of the way. Close to impossible to schedule appointments for driving hours, hard to get a person on the phone to provide any information, and the road test professionalism and support for their student was sorely lacking. You spend good money for the Driver’s Ed and driving hours and road test; you should get more service, support and professialism than you do with Newton Driving School. Choose another driving school.

I agree with the M.B. from Alston. The school is difficult to work with. They do not answer the phone. They are late with emails. They are late with lessons, assuring me that it’s «no problem» when they arrive 30 minutes late. The instructors communicate poorly and are lacking in people skills. The school price gouges whenever it can. I took one of my children there for drivers education and then returned for the road test. They did little more than provide the car. No coaching, no prep, nothing. I thought this was standard until I took my other child to another driving school for her test. At the other school, they told her what to expect, gave her a quick review, and helped build her confidence. She passed. Avoid Newton Driving School.

Newton Driving School is very bad — unresponsive to phone calls for scheduling, rude to students, mostly indifferent instructors. They act as if they’re doing you a favor. This is the kind of old-​style, unprofessional business that needs to die a quick death. I would definitely go elsewhere to professionally run operations.

I made the mistake of trying to learn to drive with Newton Driving School this past summer. I wasted my money, didn’t get my license, and instead wound up afraid of driving and learning things that needed to be unlearned with the help of my new instructor at Brookline Driving.
First of all, NOBODY ever picks up the phone here. Ever. And when you finally reach their voicemail, nobody ever checks it or calls you back as asked. They say they do home pickup, but it proved to be a huge hassle even though I live well within their advertised zone. Their hours aren’t great if you’re an adult trying to learn how to drive in between working. But really, the story of my experience with Newton Driving School comes down to one angry, rude driving instructor named Yuri. Incidentally, Newton Driving School employs more than one Yuri, and I don’t know last names, but this wasn’t the old, nice Yuri, this was lean, mean Yuri.
I will say this — he got me driving, but he’s a terrible instructor. He yelled at me, accused me of lying, told me I was making things up when I said I couldn’t see the curb (why I would lie about this I have no idea), and got me so angry I swore at him and wound up grinding my teeth in rage. And I am a generally laid back person. His methods of parallel parking are bizarre and can best be summed up as an overly-​complicated seven step process, and his temper and yelling got so bad that I wound up being too scared to think straight when trying to parallel park on a road with traffic, leading to more yelling. I eventually found myself canceling lessons just to postpone the time until I had to see Yuri again.
I have found a better instructor now (see my review of Brookline Driving School) and am now confidently working my way towards my license and being able to drive myself to work in the fall. I should never have wasted my time with Yuri.

Absolutely terrible experience. The biggest issue was the lack of clarity around the process surrounding completion of the course and the taking of the test resulting in unanticpated delays in our daughter’s schedule for getting her license. She had to scramble to complete the courses within the new time constraints. In addition, they tried to overcharge us for classes we had not taken.
What really was frustrating was the canceling/​rescheduling and canceling again of the scheduled Road Test. I have all the time in the world for a company that takes responsibility for their errors and apologetically handles the conflict. Such was not the case with Newton. We kept getting the «not our fault excuse». The lesson of «its not about the who its about the what» is lost on these guys. We were treated rudely upon arrival for our test and again after waiting 45 minutes when we found out it wasn’t going to happen. I ended up in a shouting match as the guy was holding my daughter’s permit back because he wanted to us to sign some form that they could use against the RMV. Not my problem.
All in all a terrible. Comes as no suprise to me that Newton Public Schools use Brookline Driving School – I should have checked into that first.
I have 3 other kids and I can guarantee we are going elsewhere next time.

Newton driving is like hell in a class room. The classroom hours are barely survivable. And when it comes to scheduling driving hours you might as well be talking to a chimp. They are rude, and extremely unorganized. You would rather drive illegally with out a license and pay the consequences than waste your time with these asswholes

I took classes and passed the road test with this school. And I could say that I highly recommend it. All the staff here are very nice, knowledgeable and patient.