SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – ABLE 2 Driving School is now operating in person for its five-hour pre-license course. According to Jason Rockwell, chief operator and co-owner, the business has been busy since New York state has been expanding its reopening guidelines. After being closed for four months and virtual for half a year, Rockwell said the rush is welcomed.
“People that might’ve planned on getting their license last year, but didn’t because of the pandemic so they postponed it to this year and now everybody wants to get in,” said Rockwell.
Able 2 Driving School received over 200 requests to sign up for the five-hour pre-licensing course, private driving lessons, and defensive driving. Rockwell said he also hired additional people and implemented more resources to accommodate the requests.
“We actually put together a waiting list so that people would actually pay for when we would open up and then we would get them into classes and that I feel helped us quite a bit,” said Rockwell.
Before the pandemic, Able 2 partnered with local high schools to implement their driver education program. Typically, one session allows up to four students in one car but because of safety and health concerns, the program has been discontinued. There has been no announcement for when the program will start again.
Able 2 was deemed a non-essential business that closed the building down for four months. Although business is doing better since the reopening, Rockwell said they received PPE loans and took out more.
“We’re going back and forth saying ‘hey the bills didn’t stop’ when it was shut down you know we still had to pay all these bills, we had to take loans out to pay those to get us through,” said Rockwell.
Raven Gardinier, office staff at Able 2, said that she and a couple of other colleagues were brought on to help push the school ahead on processing and receiving certificates as well as booking lessons.
“We had a huge waiting list of people from all over the place in Syracuse, and my job essentially was to go through all of those and be like ‘hey, you know, do you still want to do this,’” said Gardinier.
Gardinier was previously laid off from another job and was brought on by Rockwell to manage the heavier workload caused by the pandemic.
“Now that I’m here and I’m doing something again and everyone’s opening back up and I’m starting to see more people, it’s a little anxious but I’m so glad we’re starting to move in the right direction,” said Gardinier.
Rockwell said anyone who wants a private lesson will have to wait three to four weeks because of the many people looking to get a lesson.
