Mansfield Driving School Shuts Down, Causes Questions for Reimbursement

In what may remind some of a Waltham Driving School’s closing last year, the Mansfield-based Driver’s Choice Driving School abruptly closed it’s doors on Monday.

According to some customers of the school, it gave no notice of closure, aside from a large sign that read closed. This is a quote from the company’s Web site:

"Effective May 14, 2012 Driver's Choice has ceased all operations. The Registry of Motor Vehicles will be in touch will all students or you can call the RMV.  We here at Driver's Choice truly regret any hardship this may cause our customers.  We will be mailing documents to all students that have been affected by the closing of our school."

Attleboro resident and mother of a nearly-old-enough-to-drive teenager Teri Marshall said she was very surprised about the incident and was not told about the closing.

“We were in the car, and my daughter saw somebody had posted it on Facebook,” Marshall said. “One friend started posting, and then all the kids started talking.”

A pro-rated bond covered the school for customer reimbursement. The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation will be going through the school’s records to ascertain what needs to be reimbursed based on what the cost of remaining training.

Marshall said she will be moving her daughter to another school soon.

“We’re going to have to,” she said. “The question will be when we signed up with [DCDS] we did a package plan.”

Driving schools put classes and road lessons in package deals, which are always cheaper than separate lessons. The problem with this is that Marshall’s daughter took the class, but not the road lesson. Now, even with the bond, Marshall and most likely many other parents in the same situation will be stuck paying more at other places, regardless of their reimbursement. Marshall said she put down a $300 down payment for the package deal to start her classroom time. The driving hours would have been another $275 to complete.

“Now when I go on Labonte’s Web site, there’s no way $275 is going to cover for 12 hours of road lessons,” she said.

In Waltham last year, J.M.C. Driving School also abruptly closed. Attorney general Martha Coakley stepped in and filed a complaint, basically saying that the school knew they were going to close, did not give notice and kept payments for services not yet rendered.