Family all accelerate to first-time success
A Seaham family has enjoyed provisional success after all four members passed their driving test first time – with help from the same instructor.
Twenty-five-year-old son Adam Dodds has been on the road for the last six years – but now mum and dad Mandy and Steve and his big sister Abbi have also been able to bin their ‘L’ plates after passing with Paul Jasper, who runs ii drive driving school.
Steve, 53, said he had just never got round to learning, but when 56-year-old Mandy said she wanted to learn and Abbi, 26, decided to pick up where she had left off before moving away from the family home in Seaton Crescent, he didn’t want to be the odd one out.
"My wife semi-retired two years ago and she thought ‘I will learn to drive’,” he said.
"It has taken the best part of two years because the lessons were on and off during the pandemic.
"But she eventually got to sit her test and then passed on the first try in August,” he added.
“My daughter had lived in York for six years but came back home home during the pandemic and decided to take up her lessons with Paul again. She got a cancellation and passed her test in March.”
It was Paul Jasper who taught Adam and the rest of the family have since used ii drive on his recommendation.
Steve finally made it fourout-of-four when he qualified first time a couple of weeks ago.
Now he and Mandy are making the most of their new-found freedom.
“It feels amazing – it has just opened life up for us with all these opportunities,” he said.
"We are away driving every weekend now.”
It has also been a big help with family life for Steve, a research nurse at Sunderland Eye Infirmary, and Mandy, a health care assistant at Sunderland Royal Hospital.
“My mother-in-law lives with us and now we are both able to take her wherever she wants to go, and whenever she wants to go,” said Steve.
“And I have a stepmother that we both do a lot of running around for who lives in Sunderland, so it is so much easier now.
“It is absolutely fantastic.”