We really want to meet you, we really want to train you, – it’s what we do. So, please don’t be late!

However, there is a joint responsibility.

We have a responsibility to provide you with what you paid for and to meet the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) regulations and any health and safety issues.

Customers that pay for training expect the course to start on time. They expect the course to run as advertised. They expect to receive quality tuition and become safe motorcyclists with the appropriate certification. This seems reasonable and fair.

CBT courses can’t be joined in after the course has started. This is a legal requirement imposed by the DVSA and is a condition of us providing this training. Some courses have DVSA tests attached to them, and lateness will result in a loss of fee.

We have a responsibility to make sure you know what time you should attend, what you should bring and where you should go. To this end we advertise this information on our website and in the emails and texts that we send you, as well as what we tell you on the phone. We even ask that you acknowledge by return that you understand the implications of being late, not bringing the correct equipment or documentation, or going to the wrong site.

We advertise what time you should arrive, and this is typically 15 minutes before the start time of the course. We then allow a further 5 minutes before starting the course. This means that anyone who is late is a full 20 minutes later than the time that we asked them to arrive. We feel that this is reasonable and fair.

What happens if we start late?

To start the course late would have the following outcomes:

• We run late. In which case this may impact on customers who have plans for later in the day. But more importantly, there is a health and safety issue which may mean that either our customers or our employees are tired by the end of the day. Any accident occurring because of running late always begs the question as to whether the student or instructor were in a fit state. This is not a risk we are prepared to tolerate.
• We cut the training short. This may mean that those customers that did arrive on time don’t complete their CBT or get less training than they should have to prepare them for their motorcycle test. This is clearly very unfair.
  
  

This brings us to your responsibility, which is clearly to read the information we send you and to give yourself plenty of time to arrive punctually. However, we can’t make you do this, it is beyond our control.

Lightning Motorcycle Training is a not-for-profit business. This means we must run a very fine line between profit and loss. To provide the service that we do, at a reasonable cost, and to pay for our staff and overheads we simply can’t afford to bear the cost of rebooking late customers free of charge. Again, the regulations require that we run the courses at certain ratios, so it is not just a case of adding a late customer onto another course. The prices are set with the number of students that can be trained at any one time. We have done this for nearly a quarter of a century.

Nevertheless, we accept that people lead complicated lives and that sometimes things are beyond their control too. Who can predict a puncture or a road closure? But these matters are beyond our control as well. We acknowledge this so we have a rebooking price that is significantly lower than the advertised price. We do this as a gesture of goodwill, and we do it because we want to train you and give you what you paid for. You pay more and we make a small loss as a result. No one wants this.

Please don’t be late!

So please, please give yourself plenty of time to arrive punctually. Aim to leave earlier. If you are late, you will lose your money, you will be disappointed, angry and upset. You will probably write this on social media. We really don’t want this to happen; we want you to be happy, we want you to be trained properly, we want to give you what you paid for, we want you to ride a motorcycle.

When you set your alarm add 15 minutes – just to be sure! We really appreciate your help with this. Find out more here.