This summer, Johann Stoliarov got his highway code in just two weeks and then, just a month later, his driving license. The key to this dazzling success? He owes it, according to him, to the Tiktok accounts specialized in driving, which have multiplied on the social network in recent years.
In short formats of approximately one minute, teachers record themselves during their driving lessons with a camera integrated into their vehicle. His videos on “how to reverse?”, “a fishbone?”, or even “how to manage exam stress?” Sometimes they accumulate millions of visits.
“I went to these accounts with the purpose of training,” confesses Johann Stoliarov. The young student, filmed several times by his instructor, today is amused by the fact that he has almost never set foot in the driving school. He did not even “open the little book that we advised him to study before the exam.”
“It’s a new way of reviewing,” he explains. “It’s now free and it’s also practical because we can do it at night from bed before going to sleep.”
Students’ achievements or blunders
It was at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, when Kris Mohalingam launched himself on the platform, shortly after opening his driving school in Évry-Village (Yvelines) with his brother-in-law. “We had to close due to health restrictions and we no longer had a way to communicate with our students. Then my wife suggested that I communicate with them through TikTok, and it all started from there,” says the 40-year-old . , now father of three children.
Three years later, the account has almost 850,000 subscribers. Now he is regularly recognized on the street. If the co-director of this local driving school did not expect to achieve such success, he does not hide “having taken a liking to it.”
At the end of the lockdown, Kris Mohalingam went a step further and began filming driving lessons with his students, after having previously asked their permission. With humor and calm, he shares his greatest feats as well as his worst mistakes, between two technical tips on the easiest way to park or start without stalling.
“Don’t believe it, we do a job rich in anecdotes. There are quite a few things to tell,” smiles Adama Ndao.
Director of a driving school in Chars (Val d’Oise), he had always promised to write a book about his life as an instructor, before launching a year ago on Tiktok, where he currently has nearly 400,000 subscribers. Beyond collisions or failed starts on a hill, we can see it, for example, encountering a group of wild boars at night on a country road.
After eight years of career, Geoffrey Gomez’s explanatory videos have simply restored his taste for his profession. “The fatigue was beginning to appear and this gave me a new life, a new goal,” says this 32-year-old driving school instructor, employed in Narbonne (Aude).
Immersive lessons, tutorials and live coding sessions.
However, TikTok instructors agree that their videos will never replace real driving lessons and practice accompanied by a professional.
“It’s a good additional resource for students,” summarizes Geoffrey Gómez, and “it puts a little butter on the spinach.” Videos allow some people to generate additional income of a few hundred euros per month, depending on the number of views and subscribers.
“The videos that work best are the tutorials. But what is also very popular is when people are immersed in the car,” explains Adama Ndao, who publishes one or two videos a day. “It’s easy to access and we serve them some soup on a tray,” jokes the driving school instructor.
Some TikTok instructors also regularly participate in live sessions, sometimes lasting several hours, during which they communicate directly with their community through comments. The opportunity for them to teach “highway code” workshops and to help their students prepare for the final exam by preparing them.
“For some we are a bit like coaches,” boasts Geoffroy Gómez, who is dedicated to “giving advice and reassuring anxious future candidates” regarding the driving license. The idea is to “use humor to de-dramatize the exam.” And, incidentally, recover the image of instructors who, according to Geoffroy Gómez, usually enjoy a bad reputation.
Source: BFM TV
