Refresher driving lessons with ACT Capital Driving School are for people who already hold a licence and have lost confidence, taken a long break, moved to Canberra from overseas or interstate, or want to rebuild after a crash. There is no fixed syllabus: the first lesson is a drive so the instructor can see what is actually rusty, and the lessons after that go where that drive points. They cost the same hourly rate as a learner lesson, are booked the same way, and are taught in the same dual-control automatic. Most people need between one and four.
- Price
- $100/hour
- Pickup
- Free, door to door
- Car
- Dual-control automatic
- Open
- 7 days, 7am – 7pm
Who books these lessons
You have not driven for years
A licence held but unused. Usually the underlying skill is intact and the confidence is not, which is a much shorter problem to fix than people fear.
You have moved to Canberra
Canberra drives differently to Sydney or Melbourne, mainly because of the density of roundabouts and the way arterials step between 80 and 60. Two lessons is often enough to stop this feeling foreign.
You drive on an overseas licence
Australian road rules, keeping left, roundabout give-way rules and Canberra's specific habits, for drivers who have been driving for years elsewhere.
You were in a crash
Returning after an incident is its own thing and is treated as such: as slow as it needs to be, starting wherever you are still comfortable, with no expectation of progress in a set number of lessons.
You only drive one route
Home to work and back for a decade, and everything else has quietly become daunting. Parking, merging and unfamiliar suburbs are what these lessons usually cover.
When this is the wrong booking
If you hold a learner licence rather than a full or provisional one, what you want is ordinary learner lessons, not a refresher. And if the goal is converting a manual entitlement or driving a manual again, this school teaches in an automatic only, so another school will serve you better.
How it works
A diagnostic drive
The first lesson is mostly you driving and the instructor watching. There is no point running a beginner syllabus at somebody who has held a licence for fifteen years, and no way to know what is rusty without seeing it.
The specific gaps, named
Usually two or three things rather than a general decline. Reverse parking, merging at speed, roundabout lane discipline and night driving are the four that come up most often.
Work on those, and only those
One or two lessons aimed at what the diagnostic found, on the roads where the problem actually occurs rather than in a car park.
A normal drive, unremarked
The end point is a drive where nothing needs saying. For most refresher clients that arrives faster than they expect, because the skill was never really gone.
The thing worth saying to anyone hesitating over this is that refresher lessons are ordinary and common. A meaningful share of bookings come from people with a full licence in their wallet, and the most frequent opening line is some version of an apology for needing them. It is not a remedial service and there is nothing unusual about it.
Confidence after a crash deserves its own note. That is not a driving problem and treating it as one does not work. Those lessons start wherever you are still comfortable, including a stationary car in a quiet street if that is where the line currently is, and they move at whatever pace holds. Nobody is put into traffic to prove a point.
For drivers new to Canberra, the specific local thing is roundabouts. The city has an unusual number of them, including multi-lane ones on the arterials, and the lane discipline they require catches out experienced drivers from cities that use traffic lights for the same junctions. It is a small skill and it is learnable in a lesson or two, and it is the single most common reason a competent interstate driver books a refresher here.
Lessons run across Chisholm, Tuggeranong, Woden, Belconnen, Gungahlin, Queanbeyan, with free door-to-door pickup included. See the district pages for the roads lessons use in each part of Canberra.
Questions about refresher lessons
What are refresher driving lessons?
How many refresher lessons will I need?
I have an overseas licence. Can you help me drive in Canberra?
I have not driven since my accident. Can you help?
Do refresher lessons cost more than learner lessons?
Book a lesson in Canberra
$100 an hour, free door-to-door pickup, automatic dual-control car, 7 days a week. Live availability, and booking takes under a minute.
Other lessons we teach
Beginner lessons
Lessons for people who have genuinely never driven, taught in a quiet street in an automatic with a second set of pedals on the instructor's side.
Test preparation
Mock assessments on assessment-style roads, the manoeuvres examiners mark, and a straight answer about whether to book the real thing yet.
ACT driving test guide
What the assessment involves, what examiners mark, and the faults that most often cost learners a pass.