Today we’d like to introduce you to Lance Collins.
Hi Lance, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Our company started in 1989 when Jim Collins retired from the South Carolina Highway Patrol. He was a pioneer in the driver training business in South Carolina, starting the business before it was made a requirement in 1994. Collins’s business plan was to hire other retired Highway Patrol officers to train teenagers to drive and adopted the tag line “Troopers Training Teens.” The company grew from a basement in Jim’s home to one of the largest driving schools in the area. Jim originally was the only instructor and would work on the road during the day and do the office work after getting home until late. He did eventually hire other instructors and focused his work on running the company. Now the company is located in an office near downtown Greenville with two secretaries and ten instructors running eight late model Toyota Corollas. Lance, his son, started working for the company in 2003 and became an owner in 2017. Lance has helped the company in keeping newer cars with better designed signage, modernized forms used in the business, updated the way technology is used in the business to operate more efficiently, and has sought to market the business to help it to grow in a more digital world. Auto-Safe now boasts a full range of services including point reduction classes, online classes, adult lessons, and permit tests. They have the most qualified and experienced instructors and can usually finish students in as quickly as a week.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No not always, there was a lot of growth and the company was doing well in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but with more competion the school had dropped prices very low to be able to compete in the market by 2013. Lance Collins became involved in a full-time position around this time and began to begin the process of growing the business again. Covid was of course another time when business was very slow and difficult. We lost several secretaries and instructors, but put safety measures in place and continued to do work as well as we could. One change we had to make was going to online classes on Zoom. Doing our class this way was a challenge and we had to figure out how to make this work, but did it successfully for the time we needed to do this.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are Auto-Safe Driving School. We are a driver training school. We specialize in services related to driver training, testing, and driver improvement. These include behind the wheel lessons for adults and teens, testing for the road and permit, and classroom for teens and adults in person and online. We are known for our patience with the students, instructors with police backgrounds as well as similar backgrounds, having the most experienced and qualified instructors, being locally owned and operated from our inception, and being able to schedule students quickly and always answer the phone and quickly respond to messages. This quality service is what sets apart from others. You get what you pay for with our company. We are proud to be a local company that hires the best instructors and continue to be “Troopers Training Teens.”
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Our owner Jim Collins is my father and mentor. This school is his legacy. I seek to follow his philosophy and build upon it. We could not do what we do without the support of our office staff including Margie Poole and Barbara Collins who is the founder’s wife who has done the lion share of the work in the office for many years.
Pricing:
- Driver Education- 480
- Road Test- 70
- Permit Test- 20
- 2 Hour Drive- 140
- Point Reduction Class- 80
Contact Info:
- Website: https://autosafedriving.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autosafedriving/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AutoSafeDrivingSchool
